For new nurses, the prospect of paying off several years worth of education loans can be intimidating. Some people even choose to avoid furthering their education for fear of becoming trapped by student loans.
For those who choose to enter the nursing profession, the US Government has great news, in the form of the Nursing Education Loan Repayment Program. The goal of the program is to help reduce the drastic shortage of registered nurses that many agencies are facing by helping nurses in certain positions repay their student loans.
The program is fairly simple. When a nurse signs up for the program, he or she must make a two year commitment to work in an underserved facility, usually a non-profit group. In exchange for successfully completing those two years of work, nurses receive sixty percent of their total student loans. If a nurse chooses to stay for an additional year, he or she will receive another twenty five percent of their original loan balance.
While nurses are working in these positions, they are earning a regular salary and receiving benefits that are the same as they would be for those not participating in the program. In essence, the program offers nurses the ability to nearly eliminate their loans in three years without doing anything extra.
Sound too good to be true? There are a few rules that nurses considering the Nursing Education Loan Repayment Program should know about. First, the program is for registered nurses who have completed an educational program that resulted in the awarding of a diploma, associate's degree, bachelor's degree, or a graduate level program in nursing from a school that is located within the United States. Nurses must be licensed and eligible to work at full-time status in one of the eligible non-profit facilities listed by the government. Students must be either US Citizens or must be legal, Lawful Permanent Residents of the United States.
The next part is where nurses will need to do a little homework. You will need to be working at an eligible non-profit facility or be working as a teacher in a non-profit school that teaches nursing. There are a number of different non-profit facilities that are eligible for the program, including hospitals, nursing homes, state or local health and human services departments, certain hospice programs, skilled nursing facilities, ambulatory surgical centers, home health agencies, and federally qualified health centers and rural health clinics.
There is a limit on the number of nurses who receive funding through this program, and preference is given to nurses who receive lower pay and who work in areas with the most drastic nursing shortages. Applications for the program are accepted annually, and nurses should read the information provided with the application packet completely because they will be entering into a contract with the government if they are selected. The Nursing Education Loan Repayment Program can help you start the career you have been training for without the burden of student loans.
Steven C. Brown is helping nursing students prepare for exams and tests. Read more about nursing careers and the TEAS test when applying for a nursing school.
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