Before Leyla Spells became a registered nurse, one major obstacle stood in her way: the National Council Licensure Examination, a standardized test she needed to pass. Spells had taken the exam three times, failing to answer the minimum number of questions correctly—spending hundreds of dollars each time to retake it.
Reflecting on her experience as a student at Northwestern College, a for-profit school that recently moved from suburban Bridgeview to Oak Lawn, Spells says she doesn't think her education there was up to par. After struggling to pass the licensure exam, she came across a Facebook group for Black nurses and learned about Chicago-based tutoring startup New Nurse University. She eventually took one-on-one tutoring from the company's founder, Renee Dyson, a registered nurse herself. And Spells went on to pass the exam...