Gov. Tim Kaine announced increased funding for nursing education and faculty in a press conference at the Nursing School yesterday.
According to Kaine, the General Assembly has made changes in the Commonwealth's budget in an attempt to alleviate the nursing shortage in Virginia.
"Unless we do something dramatic, only two out of every three of you will have a nurse to take care of you when you need one," Nursing School Dean Jeanette Lancaster said during introductory remarks.
Virginia is projected to be short 23,000 nurses by 2020, according to a report by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia in 2004.
Kaine attributed the shortage to a lack of nursing faculty.
Kaine said his proposal for a 15 percent increase in nursing faculty salaries passed both the Senate and the House.
The increase will be effective July 1.
Kaine also announced the Commonwealth's plan to give $200,000 in scholarships for nurses interested in teaching and receiving their master's degrees.
As the final part of his announcement, Kaine said the University and Northern Virginia Community College have each received $750,000 to fund loan forgiveness for nursing students.
According to Lancaster, the money will be used to pay off two years of loans for nursing students receiving their doctoral degrees if they teach for four years afterwards.
"Both the scholarship and the loan forgiveness will be incentives to get people to go into nursing education," Lancaster said.
The money will help the school reach its goal of increasing enrollment by 25 percent by 2008, Lancaster said.
"This year we will only be able to make offers to one out of every 6.5 candidates for the school," she said.
According to Kaine, the Commonwealth chose to give the University the gift because it is "a leader in nursing."
"I recognize that you can have all the incentives in the world, but what it comes down to is having the heart. It really begins with you," Kaine said.
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