Pennsylvania nurses and NKU

Both copies of NKU's table list Pennsylvania the same way. NKU's rule on preceptor location closes the other door too: a Pennsylvania practice cannot precept an NKU student who lives in Ohio or West Virginia. See NKU's state tables for every row.

Pennsylvania's State Board of Nursing publishes no approval step for schools from other states that send students to Pennsylvania clinicals. For nurses already licensed, 49 Pa. Code § 21.118 is the rule that matters: a student who is already an RN elsewhere in the U.S. or in Canada, and who is enrolled in an accredited graduate or baccalaureate nursing program, may practice in the clinical settings the curriculum calls for without holding a Pennsylvania license, provided the student is unpaid apart from a stipend, a scholarship or an award tied to the program.

The Board's comprehensive education rulemaking (IRRC #16A-5141) went to final form on September 8, 2026, ahead of an October 15, 2026 IRRC meeting, and leaves § 21.118 substantially unchanged. AANP calls Pennsylvania reduced practice: NPs keep a written agreement with physicians throughout their careers, and prescribing needs collaborative agreements with two physicians or more.

Since July 7, 2025, Pennsylvania has been a full compact member, and nurses from other compact states with active, unencumbered multistate licenses can now practice there. The state's large systems are Geisinger, Penn State Health, Jefferson Health, Penn Medicine and UPMC, spread across the Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton and Harrisburg-Carlisle metros. The license change and the big systems do not alter NKU's table, which still lists Pennsylvania as closed.

Ohio and West Virginia are open to all of NKU's online programs, NP tracks included. New Jersey and Delaware stop short of NP training but open everything else: the RN-to-BSN, the two non-NP MSNs and the DNP. New York and Maryland are not authorized at all.

All four open neighbors are compact states, and under the compact your multistate license comes from the state you live in, so moving means licensing in your new home state. Pull up NKU's current admission states and your program's authorization row before packing, and keep in mind that NKU treats a residency change as something that can alter your program status.

For a Pennsylvania nurse eyeing Ohio or West Virginia, we make the plan concrete. A placement advisor maps the preceptor market in your target area for your NKU track, from Cincinnati and Columbus to Morgantown and Charleston, and explains NKU's timing so the first rotation is lined up early. When Ohio or West Virginia becomes home, the search is ours and the Medatrax request reaches NKU complete. Reach the placement desk.