getting hospital to pay for Nursing school

[d00d00butter]

Im interested in an accelerated nursing program. I may apply to private universities, which will be quite costly. these are excellent schools i would like to attend but I dont want to end up with 60K+ in loans

has anyone had success signing a contract with a hospital in exchange for them paying for your schooling. I was wondering if this is possible to to do once you have recieved an acceptance letter and prior to actually attending school? How does one go about doing this? just walk into the HR and try to sell yourself?

how does it work usually? will the hospital pay your bills right away? do you need to take a loan now and then in the future they will pay it?

[ExpatHopeful, LPN, LVN]

I have never heard of a hospital paying for an initial RN program. If you are a LPN/LVN your work may provide education benefits for a LPN to RN program. If you are an RN many hospitals will contribute towards an MSN either up front or will reimburse you pending successful completion, but I don't know of any that will pay for an initial RN program.

However, there are a couple of great scholarships that will cover the cost of nursing school in exchange for a commitment to work in a specific hospital or area for several years after graduation. For example there is a program through the army for this and one from the department of health Nursing Scholarship Program. I believe those two cover all costs, but google them. There is also the NYU Langone scholarship and the Hillman Scholarship. Those scholarships are large, but don't cover all the costs by any means. They are very competitive as you can imagine.

Good luck!