Pennsylvania for FIU Students: Training on Your Own License
Pennsylvania has a regulation that reads as if drafted for online graduate students: under 49 Pa. Code § 21.118, a registered nurse holding another state's license may train in the clinical settings an accredited graduate program requires, with no Pennsylvania license. Florida International University (FIU), however, has reached no conclusion about Pennsylvania licensure and says nothing about sites there. FIU's answer has to come first.
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Section 21.118, piece by piece
The exemption has four parts. You are licensed as an RN somewhere else in the United States or in Canada. You are enrolled in a graduate nursing (or BSN) program that is accredited. The practice takes place in a clinical setting your program requires. And the clinical work is unpaid, though stipends, scholarships and awards tied to the program do not count as pay.
Paid RN work in the state needs more: the regulation directs you to endorsement plus a temporary practice permit, and since mid-2025 an out-of-state compact license also does the job.
For students licensed elsewhere, the Board's published regulations rest on § 21.118; the distance education form it posts serves programs under its own approval. Ask the Board directly if your site raises anything more. A large rewrite of the Board's education rules, tracked by the state's regulatory review commission as #16A-5141, is nearly final and carries the student exemption forward essentially intact.
What FIU has and has not said about Pennsylvania
| Where FIU says it | For a Pennsylvania resident |
|---|---|
| Professional licensure page | Programs meet Florida's requirements; for Pennsylvania, not determined. Contact the State Board of Nursing before you start. |
| MSN and DNP admissions pages | A current Florida RN license before admission; a Pennsylvania multistate license is not addressed. |
| MSN Clinical Education page | Online AGPCNP and PNP students may train beyond the four South Florida counties; other states are not named. |
| Policy 1370.001 | Your reported address is your learner location, and clinicals count toward it. |
By the rule's own words, a Florida RN license is a license from another U.S. jurisdiction, so the licensing piece may already be in hand; confirm with the Board that it covers your case. Whether FIU will contract with a Pennsylvania practice is still FIU's decision. Read clinicals outside South Florida and then ask the Office of Clinical Education.
Collaborative agreements and Pennsylvania's large systems
AANP rates Pennsylvania as reduced practice. NPs there keep a written collaboration with physicians throughout their careers, and prescriptive authority depends on collaborative agreements with at least a pair of physicians. The NP who precepts you works within those agreements.
Philadelphia's metro, which extends into New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, dwarfs the rest; Pittsburgh comes next, then Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton and Harrisburg-Carlisle. Five large systems give a sense of scale: Penn Medicine, the University of Pennsylvania's health system; Geisinger; UPMC; Penn State Health; and Jefferson Health. They illustrate where Pennsylvania's NP students search, with no suggestion that any of them hosts FIU students, and community practices and pediatric clinics belong on the list too. A practice new to FIU needs a contract before day one, as the site contracts page explains.
A compact state since July 2025
Full compact implementation arrived on July 7, 2025, letting Pennsylvania residents hold a multistate RN license for the first time. The state has not taken up the APRN Compact. For FIU, the rule that matters is still the Florida RN license the MSN asks for before admission; the Florida RN license page covers FIU's silence on compact licenses from other home states. Keep your learner location current as well, as the moving page describes.
Why Pennsylvania students choose us
A regulation as clear as § 21.118 lets us put our effort where it counts: the preceptor. Once FIU has signed off on Pennsylvania, we look in your own metro for adult-gerontology or pediatric primary care NPs and physicians who meet FIU's experience and certification bar, learn which practices already work under FIU contracts, and assemble everything the Preceptor Request Form asks for. Approval sits with FIU's clinical education staff and faculty, and what we send them is ready on the first pass.
Questions FIU students ask
Is a Pennsylvania license required to train there with FIU?
For unpaid clinicals, § 21.118 says no, provided your RN license comes from another U.S. jurisdiction and your graduate nursing program is accredited. A paid nursing job in Pennsylvania is a separate question: the rule points to endorsement and a temporary practice permit, and a compact license from another member state now covers it too.
Has FIU found that its MSN meets Pennsylvania's requirements?
No finding exists either way. FIU's licensure page covers Florida and says FIU has not determined whether its programs meet other states' requirements. Its guidance for licensure outside Florida is to consult that state's agency before enrolling; for Pennsylvania, the State Board of Nursing.
Will Pennsylvania's new nursing education rules change the student exemption?
The final-form text says not in substance. The Board sent its education rulemaking to the regulatory review commission in final form on September 8, 2026, and the commission scheduled its public meeting for mid-October. The exemption for students licensed elsewhere survives in that text, but read the adopted version once the commission acts.
Where do NP students in Pennsylvania look for preceptors?
Close to home, in the Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown or Harrisburg areas, among independent practices and the big systems named above. For an FIU student, any site also needs FIU's approval and an FIU contract, and FIU has to accept an out-of-state location before the search is worth starting.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-26
We check these pages against FIU's own graduate handbook, preceptor manual, plans of study, catalog and licensure pages. Your plan of study, your course faculty, your clinical faculty and FIU's Office of Clinical Education have the final word.
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