Both the nation's health-care and nursing education systems are in crisis. While the care provided by registered nurses (RNs) is essential to patients' recovery from acute illness and to the effective management of their chronic conditions, the United States is experiencing a nursing shortage that is anticipated to increase as baby boomers age and require more health care. In the face of this crisis, one might reasonably conclude that the three educational systems responsible for providing the nation with its nursing workforce would be working as a team to develop proposals to strengthen nursing education and provide the nation with the nurses it needs. While the U.S. faces a critical shortage of nurses, the debate continues over the educational path to an RN license. In several states--New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and New Mexico--state-level nursing organizations are focused on changing state law to support these national groups' position, which would force associate-degree RNs to obtain second undergraduate degrees from bachelor's degree programs. Ten years after RNs receive their nursing licenses, they would become ineligible to practice in the state in which the proposal is adopted if they have not obtained bachelor's degrees.