Registered Nurses
The North Central Coast has multiple RN programs and strong occupational opportunity. The evidence now points to constrained seats and selective entry, not an absence of training.
The decision context.
EDD North Central Coast, 2023–2033
EDD North Central Coast
64 selected in the 2025 cycle
Cabrillo per cohort / Hartnell current→announced annual / MPC fall intake
Strong evidence stays separate from weak evidence.
Market opportunity
EDD reports 2,560 projected regional openings for 2023–2033 and a $139,739 regional median annual wage.
Training supply
Cabrillo, Hartnell, and MPC provide in-region RN pathways; Gavilan is a nearby regional asset.
Capacity + access
Cabrillo documents 390 submitted applications and 64 selections in the 2025 cycle and now publishes roughly 27–32 students per cohort. Hartnell currently lists a 50-student cohort but announced an increase to 75 students annually; MPC reports 32–48 new students each fall depending on funding. Clinical-site, faculty, yield, and actual filled-seat constraints are not yet verified consistently across programs.
Outcomes
California BRN verifies current first-time NCLEX-RN pass rates for Cabrillo, Hartnell, MPC, and Gavilan. Hartnell also reports 93% program completion for 2024 and MPC reports 96% employed upon graduation. Those are useful but not yet a common, reproducible employment-and-earnings outcome set across all providers.
Workforce-system status
Program-level CalJOBS ETPL status remains unverified for the loaded RN programs. Exact DataVista program/cohort outcomes are also still pending.
What is verified, and what is not.
| Question | Status | Evidence boundary |
|---|---|---|
| Program/pathway exists | Verified | Cabrillo, Hartnell, and MPC publish active RN pathways in-region; Gavilan is a nearby regional asset. |
| ETPL / WIOA listing | Unverified | Program-level CalJOBS ETPL listing has not been verified for the RN pathways. Provider existence does not establish WIOA eligibility. |
| Registered apprenticeship | Not used as supply evidence | This brief evaluates the college RN pathways. Any apprenticeship-linked seat or applicant activity is kept separate unless the registered program itself is verified. |
| Recruiting / enrolling | Partially verified | Current admissions information is published for Cabrillo, Hartnell, and MPC, but the brief does not treat an application page as proof that every available seat is filled. |
| Capacity | Partial | Published or announced cohort sizes are available, but clinical placements, faculty capacity, yield, and realized expansion are not consistently verified. |
| Access | Partial | Selective admissions and cohort structure are documented. Travel, clinical-placement, schedule, language, and support barriers are not yet measured consistently. |
| Outcomes | Partial | Licensure pass rates are authoritative; provider completion/employment claims are useful but not a common employment-and-earnings measure. |
| Market geography | Verified | EDD publishes North Central Coast regional openings and wage evidence for Registered Nurses. |
What is already available.
What this response means now.
What to do with the current evidence
- Validate whether faculty, clinical placements, or other program resources are the binding constraint on additional seats.
- Test whether incremental capacity can be added inside existing programs before considering a new RN program.
- Use the current licensure evidence as an outcome check, while adding reproducible employment and earnings outcomes.
What would change this finding?
- If existing seats are going unfilled, the diagnosis would shift away from capacity.
- If added clinical or faculty capacity is infeasible, access/readiness interventions may matter more than scaling seats.
- If employment, earnings, or licensure outcomes deteriorate materially, redesign would become more important than expansion.
Only collect evidence that could change the decision.
- Verify program-level ETPL status in CalJOBS for Cabrillo, Hartnell, MPC, and Gavilan.
- Reproduce exact DataVista RN completions, employment, and earnings by institution/cohort.
- Collect clinical-placement capacity, faculty vacancy/capacity, applicants, admits, yield, and completion data, and verify implementation of Hartnell’s announced expansion to 75 students annually.
Evidence used in this brief.
Current developments that may change this brief.
Shown only when a retained signal has a defensible link to this occupation and geography.