Background: Nursing programs have distinguished themselves for being rigorous. The college experience emerges with new challenges and demands that require adaptation in order to cope with academic stress. Situation that could lead to a non adaptive institutional environment. Objective: The purpose of this research was to determine and analyze possible repercussions of academic stress in nursing students in a Puerto Rican private university and how it affects academic performance in students. Materials and Methods: The selected methodology is a cross-sectional study. The simple random sample was comprised of 168 nursing students who were enrolled in associate degree (29.2%) and bachelor's degree programs in nursing (70.8%). Data was collected through standardized Academic Stress (CEA, by its acronym in Spanish). Results: The study shows that academic stressors are correlated with the grade point average. In addition, correlation between academic stress and the performance rate was found, especially in terms of the difficulty to approve enrolled credits. Conclusions: Nursing students suffer from stress regardless their academic degree. Academic stress affects academic performance of students despite their use of management strategies.