Kansas has about 3.0 million residents. Registered nurses average $82,360 a year, 46th among the fifty states and the District of Columbia.
Licensure
The Kansas State Board of Nursing licenses registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and advanced practice registered nurses. Its office is in the Landon State Office Building on SW Jackson Street in Topeka, telephone (785) 296-4929. Rules and applications are at ksbn.kansas.gov.
Kansas implemented the Nurse Licensure Compact in 2019. A nurse living in Kansas holds one multistate license good in every other compact state, which covers all four of its neighbors: Missouri, Nebraska, Colorado and Oklahoma.
Nurse practitioner practice
Kansas dropped its collaborative agreement requirement in 2022 and is now a full practice state. Nurse practitioners evaluate patients, order and interpret tests, and prescribe under the nursing board's authority. The case for the change rested largely on rural access, since most Kansas counties are small and thinly covered by physicians. See nurse practitioner practice authority and rural and frontier nursing.
Nursing education
The University of Kansas School of Nursing, on the medical center campus in Kansas City, is the state's academic nursing school. Wichita State University runs the largest program in the south of the state, Washburn University in Topeka and Fort Hays State University in the west carry further baccalaureate programs, and the community and technical colleges supply associate degree and practical nurse graduates across the western counties where they are the only local route into the profession.
Pay and workforce
Metropolitan Kansas City straddles the state line, and many Kansas nurses work at hospitals on the Missouri side. Both states are in the compact, so one license covers the commute. Wichita is the largest market wholly inside Kansas, and the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas, is the state's academic teaching hospital.
Western Kansas depends on widely spaced critical access hospitals, where a single facility may serve several counties and a nurse covers emergency, inpatient and obstetric duties in the same shift.
Related
- Nurse Licensure Compact
- Nurse practitioner practice authority
- Critical access hospitals
- Rural and frontier nursing
- Nursing by state
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau, state population estimates for July 1, 2025. Accessed September 8, 2026.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, registered nurses (29-1141), May 2025. Accessed September 8, 2026.
- Kansas State Board of Nursing, contact details and licensing information. Accessed September 8, 2026.
- Nurse Licensure Compact, member states. Accessed September 8, 2026.
- American Association of Nurse Practitioners, State Practice Environment. Accessed September 8, 2026.