Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
$20.4 million to train nurses in Arkansas
US rescue plan grants go to state’s 2- and 4-year colleges
The Arkansas Department of Commerce announced on Monday it was awarding $20.4 million in federal grant funds to boost the state’s nursing pipeline at its two- and four-year colleges.
The grants, which are funded through the federal American Rescue Plan Act, will be distributed to colleges and nonprofit health groups to help fund programs to train new nurses.
During a news conference at the Department of Commerce, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the funds go towards educating mores nurses, helping to relieve the shortage of health care professionals.
“As anyone who works in the health care industry will tell you, we’re facing a nursing shortage,” Sanders said. “We need great nurses in order to have great medical facilities, but we’re not training enough of them, fast enough.”
The grants are a part of the state’s Arkansas Linking Industry to Growing Nurses (ALIGN) Program that uses funds from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a federal pandemic-era stimulus, “to upskill lower-level professionals, expand nursing apprenticeship programs, and increase nurse educator recruitment and retention,” according to the Arkansas Office of Skills Development.
“In my seven or so years here at the state of Arkansas, I cannot recall a time we made such a significant investment in the nursing and health care workforce, as a whole,” said Cody Waits, director of Arkansas Workforce Connection division.
During a meeting with lawmakers in October, the Department of Commerce said it would match — at a two-to-one rate — every dollar a private health care partner donates to a college technical or vocational school or university under the program.
The Republican governor said the covid-19 pandemic underscored the growing need for more nurses, saying, “We’ll need nearly 300,000 new nurses across America by the end of the decade.”
According to the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, the median age for a registered nurse declined from 52 in 2020 to 46 in 2022, due to roughly 200,000 experienced registered nurses leaving the profession. The council stated that many of those who left the profession were burned out from increased workloads during the pandemic.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said it projects the country will need at least 275,000 additional nurses during a 10-year stretch from 2020 to 2030.
The following colleges and universities received grant money:
• Arkansas State University/ ASU Beebe — $2,598,396.00
• ASU-Mountain Home — $625,175.00
• Arkansas Tech University — $327,208.00
• Baptist Health Foundation — $1,944,608.00
• Henderson State University — $761,200.00
• Jefferson Hospital Association — $420,800.00
• John Brown University — $328,250.00
• NorthWest Arkansas Community College — $2,110,901.58
• Ouachita Baptist University — $487,000.00
• Philander Smith University — $396,857.13
• University of Arkansas Eleanor Mann School of Nursing — $1,198,353.00
• University of Arkansas Community College at Batesville — $368,614.26
• University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton — $2,024,546.00
• University of Arkansas-Fort Smith — $2,033,375.00
• University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Nursing — $969,200.00
• University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences — $1,679,566.07
• University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff — $1,004,000.00
• University of Arkansas-Rich Mountain — $645,850.00
• University of Central Arkansas School of Nursing — $476,100.00