“Will they open it up to plumbers and garbage men if they can’t get enough nurses?”
An APRN is required to have at least a masters in nursing.
CA...
https://health.ucdavis.edu/nursing/academics/NPresident-checklist-outofstate-061521.html
Don’t see a masters degree mentioned.
And where masters are required, there are always the ANP diploma mills.
There are a plethora of those apparently.
Lovely.
There are nurses and there are nurses.
I don’t think having a nursing ticket advance practice or not guarantees any particular Intellegence or moral center.