$1.2 million award from Health Resources and Services Administration offsets tuition costs for nursing educators
Regis College received a $1.2 million grant award for the academic year from the Nurse Faculty Loan Program to help offset tuition costs for Doctor of Nursing Practice students and continue to fill the nursing faculty pipeline.
Through the NFLP program, Doctor of Nursing Practice graduates can forgo up to 85 percent of their loan repayment over four years while serving full-time on the faculty of any accredited school of nursing. NFLP loans of up to $35,000 a year are available for up to five years per student.
“As a NFLP recipient, I know firsthand the benefits this program provides,” said Associate Dean of Online Graduate Nursing Karen Crowley, DNP, RN. “It made earning a doctorate more attainable and I was able to do so in less time. I have since become the project director for the NFLP grant to continue to secure additional funding for other nurses desiring to be educators.”
Regis has been the recipient of the NFLP award, administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration, for more than a decade. But this year’s award is the most the university has ever received. Nationally renowned for the Richard and Sheila Young School of Nursing, a designated Center of Excellence in Nursing Education, Regis adds more than 600 new nurses to America’s healthcare workforce each year.
Obot Tigah, a staff nurse in the maternal-newborn/neonatal ICU at Lankenau Medical Center in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, said she wanted to earn her DNP to not only fulfill her goal of educating the next generation of nurses, but also provide the best possible care for her patients through evidence-based practices.
“This loan program has been a tremendous help to me by ensuring that I can focus on my education,” Tigah added.
Efi Wilkins, a DNP ’22 candidate and assistant professor of nursing at Regis, noted she would not have been able pursue a doctorate with the NFLP. “Regis’ flexible curriculum is imperative for somebody like myself who is trying to balance the demands of career and family,” she said.
