Nursing College Grant

In the United States today, the fastest growing field is the healthcare industry. In the field or nursing, there are not enough qualified people to fill all the job opportunities available. In order to encourage more students to enter into the nursing profession to help fill the shortage, numerous organizations, private sources and the government are now supplying scholarships, grants and other gifts of money to help pay for students educations. The HRSA or Health Resources and Service Administration, which is a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, offer numerous valuable grants either tangentially or specifically applicable to nursing in the United States.

Every year the Nursing Scholarship Program distributes over two hundred grant and scholarship awards to qualifying recipients and in return, the nurses must agree that after graduation, they will work for at least two years in a health care institution that is high need. The scholarships and grants cover college expenses and tuition and offer nurses a one thousand dollar monthly stipend. The program considers college nursing students in a credited nursing program that are full time undergraduates.

The federally funded Scholarships for Disadvantaged Students program is available for students entered in a health sciences program fulltime or nursing students that are financially disadvantaged. Some of the many programs covered in this broad range of specialties include occupational therapy, social work, dental hygiene program, veterinary school and more. To apply for these grants and scholarships, nursing students have to apply through their financial aid office. Participating programs select candidates from those that disburse and apply awards as necessitated. 

There are grants available for international and minority nursing students to help increase their numbers across the United States. American Indian Students United for Nursing, sponsored by the Arizona State University, receives funding from the Indian Health Services, which is a division of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. This program provides nursing education grants and scholarships to Native Americans with exceptional financial needs. These Native American student nurses would be unable to attend nursing college without this financial help.

Nursing students that have selected a specialty in the nursing field they want to focus on have another possible scholarship and grant source, which is professional associations and organizations. Some of the many specialties include public health, emergency nursing, anesthesia, pediatrics, cancer, geriatrics, critical care, and many associated research and administrative specialties. Some associations that award professional grants for nursing students include the Gerontological Society of America, which awards grants and scholarships to graduate nurses finishing research on aging. An annual scholarship by the Emergency Nurses Foundation Association goes to several emergency room nurses nationwide. They base the amount of the grants given to graduate, undergraduate and doctoral nursing students upon sponsorship amounts. For more information, visit . There are three annual research based grants given to nurse anesthetists by the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists. To receive this grant, applicants must be members of the AANA and CRNA certified.

Resources:

• Health Resources and Service Administration
• Scholarships for Disadvantaged Students
• Emergency Nurses Foundation Association