The Vanderbilt University School of Nursing recently received a $1.2 million grant from the US Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Nurse Faculty Loan Program to support Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) students who plan to become nursing faculty. The grant is designed to help increase the number of qualified nursing faculty in colleges and universities across the country.

Linda Norman, DSN, RN, FAAN, Valere Potter Menefee Professor of Nursing and Dean of the School of Nursing at Vanderbilt, tells Nursing.Vanderbilt.edu:

“The nursing profession is in the enviable position of experiencing increasing demand for nurses and seeing record numbers of students apply to nursing programs. Well-qualified faculty are needed to instruct and mentor those students. This loan forgiveness program encourages and equips doctorally prepared nurses to become effective faculty nurse scholars.”

DNP students who plan to teach are eligible to receive a NFLP award that underwrites tuition, books, fees, and other associated costs. Following their graduation, loan recipients who are employed as nursing faculty at any school of nursing in the United States for at least four years will have 85 percent of their loan forgiven. Students are then given a 10-year period to pay back the remaining 15 percent.

DNP students at Vanderbilt also take courses on nursing education as part of their overall coursework. This is because of the importance of increasing the number of doctorally prepared faculty in nursing programs across the country to better educate the nursing professionals of the future. 65 Vanderbilt DNP students graduated from the program last year, and more than 270 graduates have received the loan since its inception in 2008.

See also
Study Finds 50% of Nurses Have Side Hustles for Extra Income 

To learn more about Vanderbilt’s Doctor of Nursing Practice student grants, visit here.

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