New grad RN jobs and nurse residency programs in Nebraska

A quarter of Nebraska RNs earn less than $38.09 an hour ($79,240 a year) and half earn more than $40.74. First-year offers tend to sit near the lower figure, since hospital pay scales usually rise with experience.

That puts Nebraska 31st of the 50 states and DC for median RN pay.

Pay is bunched together in Nebraska: only $2.65 an hour separates the 25th percentile from the median, a narrower gap than in most states.

The largest RN job market touching Nebraska is the Omaha area, with 13,200 RNs; that count includes nurses in Iowa.

The Nebraska Board Of Nursing licenses RNs in Nebraska.

Nebraska is in the Nurse Licensure Compact. If Nebraska is your primary state of residence, the license you earn after the NCLEX can be multistate, valid in every compact state. Nurses who live in another compact state can work in Nebraska on their home state's multistate license.

Every one of its neighboring states is in the compact too, so one license covers the whole region.

No. Nebraska's temporary license is only for nurses applying by endorsement with an active license in another state. A new graduate waits until passing the NCLEX.

Source: Nebraska DHHS, Nurse License Applications, read October 2026.

Of its neighboring states, Missouri, South Dakota and Wyoming do let new graduates work on a permit before passing. See every state's rule.

1,119 of the 1,238 first-time, U.S.-educated candidates who took the NCLEX-RN for Nebraska in 2025 passed: 90.4%, 3.7 points above the national rate of 86.7%.

With 12 new-grad programs on our list, that is about 103 new test takers for each one, near the national figure of about 114.

The exam is the same everywhere; the rate tells you about the graduates who tested here, not about your own chances. See pass rates in every state.

Among its neighboring states, Colorado pays RNs the most, a median of $100,260. Missouri has the most new-grad programs on our list (32).