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Eligible students in the last year of medical, nursing, or dental school can receive loan repayment assistance from the NHSC Students to Service Loan Repayment Program (NHSC S2S LRP).
In return, you provide at least three years of full-time service at an NHSC-approved site in a designated Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA).
Service
By joining thousands of NHSC participants across the country, you have an opportunity to provide primary health services to communities in need.
Loan Repayment
You will receive funds to repay your outstanding, qualifying, school loans.
Complete Repayment of Qualifying Loans
After your initial three-year service contract, you may be eligible for additional loan repayment funds. Continuation Contracts can help you pay any remaining school loans through one-year service extensions.
Read and follow the NHSC S2S LRP APG (PDF - 594 KB).
You must be:
Enrolled as a full-time student in the last year of medical, physician assistant, nursing, or dental school with a graduation date during the application year* on or before:
Note: Any classes that are not required or unrelated to the qualifying degree program will not count towards the hours required for full-time status.
*The application year applies to the fiscal year noted in the APG.
Note: There are additional, specific requirements for both medical students and dental students—you can find them in the NHSC S2S LRP APG.
Yes. Find out about specific guidelines and requirements for military reservists.
You must plan to train and become licensed to provide patient care in one of these disciplines and specialties:
Physician
Nurse Practitioner (NP)
Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM)
Dentist
Physician Assistant (PA)
Maternity Care Target Area (MCTA) Provider
Maternity Care Target Areas (MCTAs) are areas that don't have enough maternity care health providers. To address this issue, we are awarding maternity care health providers an additional loan repayment of up to $40,000 to work in these areas.
If you receive an NHSC S2S LRP award and meet the requirements for the MCTA supplement, we will email you to accept it. The supplement is separate from the up to $120,000 NHSC S2S LRP award.
| Disciplines | Specialty |
|---|---|
|
Physicians
|
|
| Certified Nurse Midwives |
|
To be eligible for the MCTA supplemental award, you must:
S2S LRP participants who qualify for the supplemental award of up to $40,000 will receive four equal annual payments.
Example
A participant who received a $120,000 S2S LRP award in four annual installments of $30,000, and then received a $40,000 supplemental award, would see their yearly installment payment increase by $10,000 for a total of $40,000 per year.
We guide you through the application and award process:
On average, it takes three weeks to complete an application. This includes all required and supplemental documents.
Be sure that the answers you provide in your application match your supporting documents. If we find they do not, we will reject your application.
You must submit a legible, complete online application. Your application must include all supporting documents by the application deadline.
A complete application includes:
Refer to the NHSC S2S LRP APG (PDF - 594 KB) for complete requirements and instructions. We update the APG each year.
In the BHW Customer Service Portal, complete each of the following sections:
An application is incomplete without these required supplemental documents:
Verification of Good Standing
A school official must complete and sign a report verifying:
We will verify for accuracy.
Letters of Recommendation
Submit two letters of recommendation, each on letterhead with a handwritten signature:
Recommendations should include a description of the recommender’s relationship to you. It should include a discussion of your interest in, and commitment to, a career in primary care and service populations and communities in need.
We may require you to submit additional documents based on responses on the online application.
You should only submit these documents if we list them on the “Supporting Documents” page of the online application.
You will receive a receipt of submission once you successfully submit your online application.
The S2S LRP application review process occurs over several months through independent, objective review.
Allow at least 30 business days from submission for us to review your documents and update your application status.
We provide email updates as well as updates on the status page of the online application. Make sure your contact information is correct.
We use various selection factors and funding priorities to evaluate applicants of S2S LRP and determine who receives awards.
If we select you as a finalist, you will receive a Confirmation of Interest email. In it, we will provide a deadline for your response.
To accept the S2S LRP award, you will electronically sign a copy of the contract. We will ask you for your banking information.
Once the HHS Secretary or their designee countersigns the contract, your service obligation begins.
If you do not respond to us by the deadline, your offer of award expires. We will rescind your offer and offer it to an alternate.
You may decline the award without penalty prior to signing the contract.
If you decide you do not want the award after signing the contract, notify us through the BHW Customer Service Portal.
Yes. If we do not select you for an award, we will email you no later than April 15.