My wife is a nurse. She became one because she needed something that would help her make money quickly to help her family.

If she did not face this constraint, she could have taken the traditional route of going to university and, possibly, becoming a doctor.

That's a good anecdote. However, it doesn't bode well for the profession if the big draw is for people who are in a situation where they're smart enough for the academics but need to support a family fairly quickly. My mother was a nurse too, and did largely the same thing (she went to nursing school as a working adult). She got out of hospital work as fast as she could though.