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WASHINGTON-Two bills that would establish student loan
forgiveness programs for practicing nurses and nurse
instructors have been introduced in Congress.
The Teacher and Nurse Support Act and the Nurse Loan
Forgiveness Act would erase up to $17,500 in student
loan debt for nurses. The bills' authors intend for
the new programs to attract candidates into the profession
and stem the nation's critical nursing shortage.
The bills are distinct in their proposals and applications-the
Nurse Loan Forgiveness Act, for example, is a temporary
10-year program-but each has drawn key support from
health care trade organizations, including the American
Hospital Association and the American Organization of
Nurse Executives.
The proposals would supplement the few existing government-backed
repayment or forgiveness programs, usually limited to
a small number of professionals in critical-need regions
or industries.
"The loan forgiveness concept is an age-old concept"
for professions, such as teachers and child care workers,
said Debbie Campbell, director of government affairs
for the American Associa-tion of Colleges of Nursing.
"But they are new for nursing."
The Teacher and Nurse Support Act, introduced last
month by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., would expand
loan forgiveness and cancellation programs for teachers
and nurses. The bill, HR 934, would wipe clean loans
given to full-time nurses serving in a clinical setting
or as a nursing instructor at an accredited nursing
college.
The federal government will pay off nurses' loan obligations
up to $17,500 on a graduated payment schedule over five
years-starting with $2,000 after the first year of work,
and covering up to a $5,000 in the final year of the
required service period.
The bill has been referred to the House Committee on
Education and the Workforce. A companion Senate bill
is scheduled for introduction in the near future, Campbell
said.
The Nurse Loan Forgiveness Act is on the agenda for
the subcommittee with Education and the Workforce, after
being introduced in February by Reps. Tom Tancredo,
R-Colo., and Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif. Nurses in a medical
facility or an "approved health care setting"
will be eligible for a loan forgiveness program that
would pay off up to $17,000 over a five-year period
of employment.
The Nurse Loan Forgiveness Act-like the Support act-would
pay off on a graduated scale from the first through
the fifth year of employment.
There has been no discussion yet whether the two bills
could be merged later in committee.
The Tancredo bill has found more backing so far in
Congress, gaining 41 bipartisan co-sponsors to the five
Democratic co-sponsors signing on with the Teacher and
Nurse Support Act.
According to Tancredo's office, nurses receive loan
forgiveness through only two means: either the federal
Perkins loan program or the 2002 Nurse Reinvestment
Act. Loans forgiven through the Nurse Reinvestment Act
go only to nurses working in designated medical facilities
with recognized nurse staffing shortages.
Both bills would allow employed nurses to wipe out
their federal Stafford loans taken out since October
1998.
The Tancredo-Sanchez bill applies only to registered
nurses. McCarthy's bill applies to all licensed vocational
or practicing nurses, as well as RNs, and covers diplomas
to graduate nursing degrees.
McCarthy's bill, which would reimburse or cancel student
loans for nurses who enter teaching, is a welcome proposal
to alleviate the nation's nursing faculty crunch, according
to Campbell.
Nursing instructors alleviated of loan repayment schedules
will be able to take on additional graduate-level studies,
where only 525 nurse instructors earned doctoral degrees
in 2002. American Association of Colleges of Nursing
statistics from October 2000 reported a 64 percent national
vacancy rate in doctoral faculty positions at nursing
schools.
More than 5,000 nursing school applicants were turned
away last year because of a lack of enrollment space,
the association reported last year. Schools find it
more difficult to compete with clinical salaries as
budget woes increase, and many are forced to accelerate
student course work or enter into creative alliances
with hospitals and organizations that provide part-time
faculty and resources.
"There is a backlog in many areas of the country
and we will have to address the faculty shortage before
we can get to the bottom of the nursing shortage,"
Campbell said.
More than 126,000 staff nursing vacancies exist in
hospitals across the country, and the U.S. Department
of Labor has projected a need for 1 million new and
replacement nurses by 2010. That far exceeds what the
annual nursing school graduation level of about 34,000
can produce.
Nursing school enrollment is down compared to 1995,
according to the American Association of Colleges of
Nursing, but in December the organization issued findings
noting that 2002 enrollment increased slightly from
2001 in most nursing schools. Enrollment is expected
to continue on the upswing, as many second-career nurses
abandon unstable job sectors in business and technology.
Neither bill has been scored by the Congressional Budget
Office to determine potential costs of the programs.
Contact Glen Fest at glenf@nurseweek.com
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