Cavanagh awarded grant for nursing loan program

Stephen Cavanagh, dean of the School of Nursing, was awarded $222,000 by the federal Health Resources and Services Administration to establish a Nurse Faculty Loan Program fund for graduate students.

The purpose of NFLP is to increase the number of qualified nursing faculty to facilitate education of the nurses needed to address the nursing workforce shortage.  The NFLP provides funding to schools of nursing to support the establishment and operation of a loan fund.

Participating schools of nursing make loans from the fund to assist registered nurses in completing their graduate education to become qualified nurse faculty.  The program offers partial loan forgiveness for borrowers that graduate and serve as full-time nursing faculty for the prescribed period of time. The loan recipients may cancel 85 percent of the loan over four years in return for serving full-time as faculty in any accredited school of nursing.

The funds will be available to School of Nursing graduate students this fall.