FINANCIAL pressures could force tens of thousands of nursing students to drop out of their studies, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has warned.

A study conducted by the union estimated that 32,000 pupils studying to become nurses may have to leave their courses in the next years due to financial pressures and worsening pay packets upon graduation.

Student nurses were granted a bursary until 2016, but now have to pay more than £9,000 each year to train.  

The union found that seven in 10 are considering quitting due to financial pressures in a survey earlier this year.

For graduates, real-terms pay cuts in the profession have been so severe that hundreds of thousands of nurses are effectively working five days a month for free.

Last week, the RCN slammed the government’s proposal of a 2.8 per cent pay increase for staff as an “insult” and “counterproductive to rebuilding the NHS.”

RCN general secretary Professor Nicola Ranger said: “The students of today are the nurses of the future, but for tens of thousands, the unbearable weight of graduate debt, lack of support with living costs and [the] prospect of low pay is set to push them out of the profession before they qualify. 

“To deliver the government’s NHS reforms we need to supercharge recruitment into nursing, but we can’t do that with a broken education model or more real terms pay cuts.

“Ministers should change course and agree a social contract with nursing students that sees pay rise and loans forgiven if they commit to working in public services.

“Transforming care cannot happen without investment to transform nursing.

“That means changing the way we recruit into the profession and making it a more attractive career by raising pay.”