Nursing is a noble profession, at the same time it is a profession that requires highly skilled individuals to continuously update licensures and upskill to provide optimal patient care. It’s a known fact that Healthcare organizations with a higher percentage of nurses with BSN or higher degrees have lower mortality rates and better patient outcomes. However, the U.S. has 4.4 million Registered Nurses out of which only 65 percent have a baccalaureate degree. Like me, if you are wondering why this number isn’t higher, the data from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing may hold some answers. The data shows that around 70% of nursing students enrolled in an MSN program have a federal student debt averaging $47,321. The average student loan burden on nursing students graduating with a BSN is around $23,711 and for a DNP it is a whopping $184, 787 – making financial barriers a discerning factor in nursing education.
Employer-funded education benefits like Tuition Assistance, Student Loan Repayment Assistance, and Scholarships can significantly bring these numbers down for Nurses. This is basically why most Healthcare organizations have one or more of these education benefits available for their workforce. The former two may bear consequences of repayment on repartition or employment tenure expectations, but Scholarship dollars do not have to be paid back adding charm to the benefit, and yet they offer strategic leverages. Here, we’ll be talking about how Scholarships are a vital education benefit for Nurses and how you can leverage it.
Let’s delve into how employer-funded scholarships benefit learners. Degrees in Nursing can be expensive, especially advanced ones. By offering scholarships, organizations can help remove the financial barrier to higher education for nurses and encourage them to pursue their career aspirations.
Now that I have you convinced of the benefits, let’s look at the different types of Nurse Scholarships.
If you are a Healthcare organization looking to offer scholarships to your Nurses but don’t know what to do, keep reading.
The first step is to always calibrate the education level of the Nursing population and map their career pathways. Then support them with education benefits, of which scholarship is a key ancillary benefit that is gaining a lot of impetus in the Healthcare industry. There are several ways in which Healthcare organizations can and are supporting the higher education and upskilling goals of Nurses with the help of Scholarships. Based on our experience, here’s what you can do:
It’s worth mentioning that regardless of the type or strategic intent of the scholarship each of them will have the common elements of administration like the application process, letter(s) of recommendation, a baseline GPA cut-off, enrollment verification, reviews, and finally cutting checks for the awards. The scholarship process, even though it sounds simple, is best handled by a third-party organization specialized in these services because of the IRS requirements for Grants to Individuals. Let the experts do the job for you. Edcor can design and administer a Scholarship program that hits one or more of the above-mentioned strategic points.
Rest assured that the ROI of these benefits is pretty high considering the attrition in the Healthcare industry and Nurse Shortage. To sum, Scholarships provide financial support, enable access to higher education, and allow nurses to specialize in their field of interest. Ultimately, this benefits the healthcare system as a whole by ensuring that nurses have the knowledge and skills necessary to provide quality care to patients.
Edcor specializes in Healthcare and other Corporate Scholarships. When in doubt, give us a call!
By Spardha Khera, Edcor
Edcor is a woman-owned business and is the benchmark in education benefits administration. For 40+ years, our customized service and solutions have allowed Fortune 500 Clients to use education benefits programs for employee recruiting, retention, and development.