Nurse Corps Scholarships

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is it worth it? Or do you think it would be better than taking out loans? I can't decide if working in an understaffed, specific environment would burn me out and turn me off from nursing completely.

Any thoughts? not sure where else to post this forum.

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Hey there! I am surprised no one responded to your question. I don't have an answer for you, but I am glad you posted this, as I didn't know this thing existed.

I looked up my area...my local hospital is in a HPSA. So it looks like this program would be good for me, as I would probably end up working at the HPSA facility anyways since its around the corner from me.

What did you end up deciding?

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Specializes in CCRN.

Hi @Barbiegirl1229,

I saw your post, and as a recent grad who was a nurse corps scholar and just got hired into my first job I wanted to tell you that yes this program is definitely worth it. Way, way better than loans. All you have to pay for school is the taxes off of HRSA's tuition payments, so financially speaking it is certainly better. In response to your inquiry about the type of hospitals/facilities you might be working in, underserved does not equal understaffed. Lots of the facilities serving underserved communities in the U.S. are top tier hospitals with state of the art equipment and good staffing ratios. The one thing I will say is you will likely need to be flexible with the specific city you live in. You should be able to get the state you want (assuming a competitive application, interview, etc.) but if you absolutely have to work in Irvine, CA for instance and would absolutely not want to be in Hemet, CA, then this may not be the best program for you.

Hope that helps!

Best,

Nate

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On 1/14/2020 at 9:24 AM, normalnate said:

Hi @Barbiegirl1229,

I saw your post, and as a recent grad who was a nurse corps scholar and just got hired into my first job I wanted to tell you that yes this program is definitely worth it. Way, way better than loans. All you have to pay for school is the taxes off of HRSA's tuition payments, so financially speaking it is certainly better. In response to your inquiry about the type of hospitals/facilities you might be working in, underserved does not equal understaffed. Lots of the facilities serving underserved communities in the U.S. are top tier hospitals with state of the art equipment and good staffing ratios. The one thing I will say is you will likely need to be flexible with the specific city you live in. You should be able to get the state you want (assuming a competitive application, interview, etc.) but if you absolutely have to work in Irvine, CA for instance and would absolutely not want to be in Hemet, CA, then this may not be the best program for you.

Hope that helps!

Best,

Nate

@normalnate,

I'm actually going to apply to what I believe is this program. Is the Nurse Corps Scholarship and the NHSC Scholarship the same thing?

Also, do you have any idea if your credit hours are part time (6 credits), but you have 210 clinical hours in the same semester, do they count clinical hours as full-time status? There are some semesters in my program where there are 2 classes @ 3 units each, but we do 210 clinical hours on top of that. Not sure if they take that into consideration when determining full or part time status.

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I am applying for the 2020-2021 Scholarship now.

On 1/14/2020 at 12:24 PM, normalnate said:

Hi @Barbiegirl1229,

I saw your post, and as a recent grad who was a nurse corps scholar and just got hired into my first job I wanted to tell you that yes this program is definitely worth it. Way, way better than loans. All you have to pay for school is the taxes off of HRSA's tuition payments, so financially speaking it is certainly better. In response to your inquiry about the type of hospitals/facilities you might be working in, underserved does not equal understaffed. Lots of the facilities serving underserved communities in the U.S. are top tier hospitals with state of the art equipment and good staffing ratios. The one thing I will say is you will likely need to be flexible with the specific city you live in. You should be able to get the state you want (assuming a competitive application, interview, etc.) but if you absolutely have to work in Irvine, CA for instance and would absolutely not want to be in Hemet, CA, then this may not be the best program for you.

Hope that helps!

Best,

Nate

Hi Nate!

I was looking for someone to respond about this as well. I am applying for the 2020- 2021 scholarship. How long did it take for them to make a decision of whether or not you have been accepted into the scholarship program? I think this year there the due date to submit is in April.

Thanks :)

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I am applying too, and I thought about the stress that it might come w but also working in underserved communities is what makes the most impact & I am sure it feels way better than taking out loans especially depending on how expensive it is

Good luck to everyone applying!

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