Today, the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) announced the first recipients of the Earn to Learn program to address critical workforce shortages for nurses across the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Earn to Learn Nursing Education Acceleration Program aims to transform nurse clinical education to accelerate the development of practice-ready nurse graduates. The grant was open to educational institutions or organizations that offer Virginia Board of Nursing-approved nursing education programs for pre-licensure Registered Nurses (RN) and Licensed Practical Nurses (LPN).
“The Earn to Learn program is a win all around for nursing students, schools, hospitals, and communities,” said State Health Commissioner Karen Shelton, MD. “Nursing students will be able to earn a stipend while completing classes and clinical training. The program has academic and hospital partners in every region of the state, ensuring opportunities are spread across Virginia. For communities, more nursing graduates means more nurses to take care of patients in doctor’s offices, hospitals, urgent care centers, clinics and other settings.”
“Preparing future clinicians for careers in medicine is imperative at a time when we face serious shortages of nurses, doctors, and behavioral health professionals,” said Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association (VHHA) President and CEO Sean T. Connaughton. “The Earn to Learn program is an innovative apprenticeship model that promotes collaboration between nursing schools and hospitals by providing hands-on clinical experience and compensation to nurses in training. It aligns with work already happening in Virginia hospitals where many aspiring nurses and doctors receive training. VHHA and its members are also working to strengthen Virginia’s health care workforce through initiatives such as the On Board Virginia campaign to recruit new nurses to practice in the Commonwealth. Earn to Learn is an essential tool to help address nursing shortages. We are excited to see its implementation and we commend Governor Youngkin and the Virginia General Assembly for enacting this important program.”
The Earn to Learn program was included in the adopted 2024 budget. In establishing the program, the General Assembly directed VDH to utilize $5 million of Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLRF) authorized by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to establish the Commonwealth’s Earn to Learn Nursing Education Acceleration Program in Fiscal Year 2024. For Fiscal Year 2025 and Fiscal Year 2026, $4 million in general funds was appropriated to the program.
The Earn to Learn program provides funding to educational institutions in the Commonwealth to foster collaborative clinical training arrangements between grant recipients, hospitals, and health providers with the goals of:
- increasing the number of nursing students in Virginia’s nursing programs,
- creating more employment opportunities for nursing students so that they are more likely to secure jobs upon completion of their training, and
- producing more practice-ready Registered Nurses and Licensed Practical Nurses thus enhancing RN and LPN retention in the Commonwealth.
Students participating in the program will be placed at partner clinical sites to receive paid, hands-on training and mentorship that complements their academic studies. This pay enables students to earn a wage comparable to their current level of practice while training to obtain a higher certification level. The Earn to Learn model is based on a growing body of evidence that suggests better workforce program outcomes come from programs that incorporate hands-on, work-based trainings alongside academic engagement and include access to one-on-one career navigation assistance and other wraparound services.
The following educational institutions received Earn to Learn grants:
| Paul D. Camp Community College | Franklin | $500,000.00 |
| Rappahannock Community College | Warsaw | $267,885.04 |
| Germanna Community College | Locust Grove | $500,000.00 |
| Northern Virginia Community College | Annandale | $213,180.00 |
| Marymount University | Arlington | $500,000.00 |
| New River Community College | Dublin | $358,911.00 |
| Virginia Western Community College | Roanoke | $439,521.22 |
| James Madison University | Harrisonburg | $372,749.00 |
| Blue Ridge Community College | Weyers Cave | $374,967.00 |
| Southside Community College | Alberta | $367,994.53 |
| Galen College of Nursing – Richmond | Richmond | $470,819.00 |
| Laurel Ridge Community College | Middletown | $500,000.00 |
| Virginia Commonwealth University | Richmond | $493,964.00 |
Virginia Area Health Education Centers (AHECs)
- Each red dot represents an ETL awardee on the map.
The awardee institutions are expected to:
- provide coordinated educational training, paid clinical experience, and mentorship for RN and/or LPN students,
- routinely collect data on participant skill acquisition and post-graduation employment readiness, employer satisfaction, nursing shortages among clinical sites, increased RN and/or LNP enrollments at participating schools, and
- participate in technical assistance/ cohort activities hosted by VDH.
For more information about the Earn to Learn program, visit the VDH Earn to Learn website.