NHSC Scholarship Program

The NHSC Scholarship Program is a competitive Federal program that awards scholarships to students in return for a commitment to provide care in underserved communities. The program pays tuition and fees and provides a living stipend to students enrolled in accredited medical (M.D. or D.O.), dental, nurse practitioner, certified nurse midwife, or physician assistant training. Upon graduation, scholarship recipients serve as primary care providers between two and four years in a community-based site in a high-need health professional shortage area (HPSA) that has applied to and been approved by the NHSC as a service site. Awards are made to applicants most committed to serving underserved people and most likely to build successful careers in HPSAs and meet future needs for care throughout the Nation.

You can take advantage of this powerful financial benefit provided by NHSC and then do your payback as a Commissioned officer in USPHS. The Indian Health Service (IHS), Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have sites that are HPSA qualified and allow concurrent pay back of your NHSC obligation while receiving one of the most comprehensive benefit packages available to health care providers as officers serving in the USPHS.

Visit the NHSC Scholarship Program Web site for more information and to begin the application process.

NHSC Loan Repayment Program (LRP)

The NHSC LRP offers fully trained primary care physicians (M.D. or D.O.), family nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, physician assistants, dentists, dental hygienists, and certain mental health clinicians $60,000 to repay student loans in exchange for two years serving in a community-based site in a high-need HPSA that has applied to and been approved by the NHSC as a service site.

Similar to the USPHS NHSC partnership described above in the scholarship section, you can take advantage of the NHSC LRP as a Commissioned officer in USPHS. Those same Federal agencies listed above also have approved loan repayment sites that concurrently allow you to accept all NHSC LRP benefits while receiving one of the most comprehensive benefit packages available to health care providers as Commissioned Corps officers.

Visit the NHSC Web site for further instructions and to begin the application process.