Registered nurse positions across Greater Cincinnati hospitals sat unfilled at nearly an 8% rate at the end of 2025, according to the Health Collaborative, a regional nonprofit that tracks healthcare workforce data.
Chamberlain University is betting a new Sycamore Township campus can help close that gap by reaching a workforce segment most traditional programs miss: parents who work during the day.
The campus at 5905 E. Galbraith Road, Suite 3000, inside the Kenwood Collection, is Chamberlain's 25th campus nationwide and its second in Ohio. Classes begin Monday, Aug. 31. Admissions are open now with no application fee.
The pipeline problem
The announcement comes as Greater Cincinnati works to meet significant healthcare workforce demand, with the region recording nearly 50,000 healthcare vacancies last year. In Greater Cincinnati specifically, six open healthcare jobs compete for every healthcare graduate, the release states.
UC's College of Nursing expects its first-year enrollment to grow by roughly one-third this fall, about 100 additional students, with applications up 23%. But existing programs operate at or near capacity, and most run on traditional daytime schedules that exclude working adults with childcare obligations.
Priya Shastri, executive director of the Chamberlain Cincinnati campus, said in the June 22 press release that the region's programs are already at or near capacity. "Chamberlain's program offers a three-year BSN pathway to graduate practice-ready nurses, with state-of-the-art simulation labs, and flexible scheduling for working adults and career changers," Shastri said.
How the schedule works
The pre-licensure Bachelor of Science in Nursing program is structured around four features aimed at nontraditional students:
- Evening and weekend classes with a hybrid blend of in-person and online coursework, so students can hold daytime jobs or manage childcare.
- No prerequisite courses. Students enter the BSN curriculum on day one rather than spending a year completing general-education requirements elsewhere.
- A fixed three-year timeline that gives families a predictable endpoint.
- Multiple enrollment sessions per year, eliminating the wait for a single fall start date.
The program costs $735 per credit hour across 122 credit hours, totaling roughly $89,670 in tuition before financial aid. Chamberlain estimates the net cost at approximately $71,808 after average transfer credits and its Care Grant. A Founders' Grant of up to $15,000 is available to early enrollees at the new campus, according to the university's website.
Clinical training and employer connections
Students complete hands-on training in Chamberlain's SIMCARE CENTER, which uses simulation bays built to replicate acute care settings. Third-year students can pursue a specialty track in emergency nursing, home health, nephrology, perioperative or oncology nursing at no extra tuition, followed by an eight-week clinical placement.
Direct patient care clinicals are completed at regional health system partners, though Chamberlain has not publicly named its Cincinnati-area clinical sites.
Institutional scale
Chamberlain is part of Covista Inc. (NYSE: CVSA), formerly Adtalem Global Education, which rebranded in February 2026. Covista serves more than 97,000 students across five healthcare-focused institutions and says its schools graduate roughly 10% of all new nurses in the United States each year, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Chamberlain itself enrolls approximately 40,000 students across its 24 other campuses and counts more than 155,000 alumni. The BSN program holds accreditation from the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education and the Higher Learning Commission.
