Illinois Nurse Faculty Scholarship Opportunities

[VickyRN, MSN, DNP, RN]

On February 7, Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich unveiled a plan to increase the number of nursing faculty, provide scholarships to nursing students and create a new Center for Nursing. This comprehensive plan includes $1.3 million in faculty scholarships to attract nurses into teaching careers and $1.5 million in grants to nursing schools to expand student enrollment.

The Governor's plan will address the shortage in a number of ways:

Development of the Center for Nursing: A Center for Nursing would be established within the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, charged with goals such as developing a strategic plan for nursing manpower in Illinois, maintaining a database on nursing supply and demand, and creating nursing retention and recruitment initiatives.

Nursing educator scholarships: Since every additional faculty member in nursing can add 10 more nurses to the workforce, the Center would also be charged with the creation of a nursing education scholarship that will make pursuing a career in nursing education more attractive and more affordable in the State of Illinois. This year's budget includes $1.3 million for these scholarships.

Grants to nursing schools: Capacity in nursing colleges around the country is reaching the breaking point. In fact, over 26,000 qualified applicants were turned away from baccalaureate granting nursing programs in the United States because of faculty shortages, crowded clinical facilities, and funding shortfalls. In Illinois, over 1,100 qualified applicants were not admitted. In order to increase the number of faculty, and the number of graduating nurses as a result, Illinois would make competitive grants available to nursing schools. These could be used to hire more faculty members or create evening or weekend training programs, among other options. In Fiscal Year 2007, a $1.5 million grant would be available to nursing schools to increase the number of graduating nurses, as well as $150,000 for 15 nurse educator fellowships that would supplement faculty salaries.

Changes to existing nursing scholarship program: The legislation would amend the existing nursing education scholarship law to allow merit, in addition to financial need, to be taken into consideration when determining recipients of the nursing scholarship. Merit is to be shown through measures such as GPA, class rank, academic and extracurricular activities. Taking in account merit in awarding these scholarships will improve the successful completion rate of nursing education programs as well as helping Illinois produce high quality nurses.

Student loan repayment for nurse educators: The legislation contains provisions for a future loan forgiveness program for those who choose to become nursing faculty. The Illinois Nurse Educator Loan Repayment Program, through the Illinois Student Assistance Commission (ISAC), would be an incentive for nurses to become educators. The program will allow current nurse educators, or those in a Master's level or PhD program to become a nurse educator, to receive $5,000 in student loan forgiveness a year, for up to four years. For every year of student loan forgiveness they receive, they must work for one year as a nurse educator in Illinois. The program will be up and running by Fiscal Year 08.

In order to eliminate the nursing shortage, approximately $3-5 million a year would be spent on these programs through 2020, for a total of about $50 million.

http://www.illinois.gov/PressReleases/ShowPressRelease.cfm?SubjectID=3&RecNum=4641

http://www.aacn.nche.edu/Media/NewsWatch/2006/feb06.htm#21