Editing Herzing Issues: Licensure Eligibility and State Board Compliance (section)

=== HU-070: Herzing was unaware of Virginia Board of Nursing 500 direct-care hour requirement and adjusted hours only after a prospective student threatened to contact the VA BON; existing VA student had to advocate for proper hour count herself ===
{| class="wikitable" style="width:100%"
! style="width:14em" | Severity
| Critical
! Status
| CONFIRMED
|-
! Issue type
| State Licensure Requirement Compliance Failure
! Date added
| 2026-05-05
|-
! Owner
| colspan="3" | Dean of Prelicensure Nursing / Compliance / Office of the Registrar
|}
'''Finding.''' Per the tracker's evidence, Herzing University was not aware of the Virginia Board of Nursing requirement that out-of-state nursing programs provide at least 500 direct-care clinical hours (with no more than 125 hours of simulation) for Virginia students to be eligible for NCLEX licensure by examination. Herzing only agreed to adjust clinical hours for Virginia students after a prospective student (Student BT) threatened to contact the Virginia Board of Nursing. A current Virginia student had to independently advocate for the hour adjustment she should have automatically received. Some students reportedly left the program after being unable to find adequate Virginia-compliant clinical placement.

'''Evidence.''' Facebook posts by Student BT (Nov 14, 2024, and Jan 26, 2025) describe waiting weeks for a response from the school about Virginia's eligibility requirement for the NCLEX, and state that Virginia requires out-of-state nursing programs to complete 500 direct-care clinical hours with no more than 125 of those hours in simulation. Source Group: Herzing Direct Entry MSN Facebook Group Export (Dec 2022 to May 2026), Topical/Keyword Review (Volume 6).

'''Reported statement.''' Student BT states that Herzing did not know it needed to give Virginia students more clinical hours, since Virginia will not allow licensure if too many clinical hours are simulation hours, and that Herzing did not know this until Student BT told them. Student BT reports that Herzing then agreed to adjust clinical hours for Virginia students only after students said they were contacting the Virginia Board of Nursing, and that a Virginia student ultimately had to tell Herzing to add clinical hours because Herzing had given the wrong hour count.

'''Standards.''' 34 CFR 668.43(a)(5)(v): institutions must publicly disclose whether the program meets state educational requirements for professional licensure or certification in each state, and must determine for each enrolled student whether the program meets the licensure requirements in the student's state. U.S. Department of Education Distance Education Rule (effective July 1, 2024): distance education programs or correspondence courses offered to a student in a state different from where the nursing program is located must determine that the program meets the licensure and certification requirements in the state where each student is located at the time of initial enrollment. Virginia Board of Nursing 18 VAC 90-27 (Nursing education programs): out-of-state programs must provide 500 direct-care clinical hours with no more than 125 hours of simulation for Virginia students to be eligible for the NCLEX. NCSBN and USDE compliance framework: failure to determine state-specific licensure requirements before enrollment exposes students to NCLEX ineligibility despite program completion. ACEN Standard 4: program requirements must be aligned with state regulatory standards.

'''Impact.''' Virginia students who completed Herzing's program with the standard clinical hour structure (which heavily relies on VSIM simulation hours) may have been ineligible for NCLEX licensure in Virginia despite paying tuition and completing the program. The institution's reactive, rather than proactive, response to the Virginia requirement (adjusting hours only after threat of regulatory contact) suggests other state-specific licensure requirements may also be unknown to Herzing administration. Students from other states with strict simulation-cap requirements, such as Florida, Texas, and California, may face similar undetected ineligibility risks. Some students reportedly left the program due to inability to find Virginia-compliant clinical placement.

'''Notes.''' This issue intersects with {{HU|HU-007}}, {{HU|HU-032}}, {{HU|HU-033}}, {{HU|HU-035}}, {{HU|HU-038}}, {{HU|HU-049}} (clinical placement deficiencies) and {{HU|HU-022}}, {{HU|HU-046}}, {{HU|HU-058}} (institutional misrepresentation). The pattern of learning about state requirements only when a student raises them, and adjusting policy only under threat of regulatory contact, is a fundamental compliance failure under 34 CFR 668.43. Verification should include: (1) what other state-specific licensure requirements Herzing is unaware of, (2) whether students who already graduated had adequate state-specific clinical hours, and (3) whether Herzing has formally documented state-by-state licensure eligibility determinations as required by the July 1, 2024 USDE rule. The student who advocated for the Virginia hour adjustment did so without institutional initiative, which the tracker characterizes as a violation of the institution's duty to determine licensure eligibility before enrollment.

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