More men and people of color are entering the nursing profession, and more nurses are pursuing additional education than ever before, according to a new analysis.

The research, conducted by a team at New York University’s Rory Meyers College of Nursing, dug into nursing data from 13 states for nearly 5,000 newly licensed nurses surveyed in 2006, 2009, 2012 and 2016 — one year after they received their license.

The results, published in Nursing Outlook, found that more men have joined the workforce in recent years, jumping to 13.6% of those surveyed in 2015.

The percentage of white nurses dropped from almost 79% in 2008 to 73.8% in 2015.

Those findings are in line with recommendations published by the Institute of Medicine in 2010 that suggested the industry would benefit from increased diversity, researchers said.

“The increase in the percentages of men and nurses of color indicates that the nursing workforce is moving in the direction recommended in the Institute of Medicine report,” said lead researcher Christine T. Kovner, RN, Ph.D, in a statement issued Monday. “However, the findings are still below goals of the report and other recommendations.”

The nursing workforce is also making strides when it comes to education. The 2015 cohort found that 48.5% were likely to have a Bachelor of Science in Nursing or higher, compared to 36.6% of the 2005 group. Current nurses also have loftier educational goals, the study found, with nearly half reporting that they planned to pursue a bachelor’s degree. Nearly 60% said they planned to pursue a master’s degree, and more than 20% said they planned to pursue a doctoral degree.

“The four cohorts of new nurses were remarkably different from each other in ways that could have an important impact on workforce planning,” Kovner said. “We suspect that changes in the U.S. economic environment, including the recession, were likely to have influenced the educational and diversity trends of new nurses, encouraging them to enter the field during a difficult period for employment.”