Tennessee’s Graduate Nursing Loan Forgiveness Program has reached its $1.4 million goal to fund nursing education in Tennessee.

The money was raised through public and private contributions by health care organizations across the state.

The program was signed into law in 2006 to counteract a nursing faculty shortage in Tennessee.

The U.S. Department of Labor projects more than 1 million new and replacement nurses will be needed by 2012, and the Tennessee Center for Nursing estimates that 383 nurse faculty positions will be needed in Tennessee by 2010 to supplement teaching shortages and expected faculty requirements.

The Graduate Nursing Loan Forgiveness Program will pay for up to 100 registered nurses to return to school beginning in the fall of 2007 and will send up to 100 RNs back to school for graduate classess each year thereafter.

Nurses who earn graduate degrees through the program are expected to teach undergraduate nursing studies for four years in exchange for forgiveness of their student loans.

The first class has 62 nurses thus far. Applications will be accepted until Sept. 1.

The BlueCross BlueShiled of Tennessee Health Foundations was the program’s largest supporter, contributing $700,000 to the scholarship fund. Other major corporate donors include Caremark Rx, HCA, Saint Thomas Health Services and Tennessee Hospital Association member hospitals.

Source

This entry was posted by Taman Siswa on Sunday, August 19, 2007 at 3:42 am and is filed under Education News, Scholarship. Tags: Education News, Loans, Scholarship, Student, Student Loan, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.