North Central Kansas Technical College is doing its part to help ease the nursing shortage. Thursday, the Hays campus hosted an open house to show off its recently completed nursing building.

NCKTC spent $700,000 to double the size of its interactive learning laboratory, expand classroom and commons areas, update equipment, secure needed resources and increase the space dedicated to the library.

In the process, the school increased the number of students it can train by 50 percent.

"It's a state-of-the-art, showcase facility for teaching," said NCKTC President Clark Coco. "It's a great addition to the community."

And it's yet another solution to help ease the growing nursing shortage -- a problem expected to get even worse in the near future.

With the expansion, the campus at 2205 Wheatland will be able to accommodate 30 students in its first-year licensed practical nursing program and 30 students in the second-year registered nursing program.

We applaud the vision displayed by NCKTC, and the administration's wherewithal to secure almost three-quarters of a million dollars to fund the year-long project. The school used $90,000 from its own endowment and borrowed approximately $260,000. The balance, about $350,000, came from grants from the Kansas Board of Regents.

"They understood there was a need to increase the number of nursing students in the state," Coco said.

While 10 more LPNs or RNs graduating each year will not solve the nationwide crisis, those 20 nurses likely will solve 20 individual shortages.

Crises are solved one step at a time. With this expansion, the nursing program at North Central Kansas Technical College has taken a large step in the right direction.

Editorial by Patrick Lowry

plowry@dailynews.net