Interesting: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/art...11170359/1001/

Iowa nurses are being offered a new incentive to return to school and become nursing instructors.

Iowa Student Loan, a private company that provides college loans, announced Tuesday that it would offer grants of $4,000 per year for nurses who pursue advanced degrees. To qualify, nurses must be teaching nursing courses or planning to do so.

Nursing leaders foresee a nurse shortage, and they say the biggest problem is a lack of college instructors. "If there are no teachers, there will be no students, which means less nurses to take care of all of us," said Virginia Wangerin, president of the Iowa Nurses Association.

The immediate nurse shortage has eased in Iowa, partly because the recession has encouraged many middle-age nurses to delay retirement, Wangerin said. But the shortage surely will resume when the economy strengthens, older nurses retire and hospitals, clinics and nursing homes increase hiring.

Iowa Student Loan has committed to spending $125,000 per year on the grant program. The new offer replaces a five-year, $7 million Iowa Student Loan program that forgave student loans for nursing students who agreed to work in areas where the supply was short. Company officials said that program attracted 844 nursing students, and it will honor their contracts. They said government programs still offer similar forgivable loans.

Wangerin said a 2008 survey showed more than 100 nursing educator jobs were open in Iowa. Unfilled positions meant some schools have turned away prospective students or put them on waiting lists.

Tim Bottaro, a Sioux City lawyer who is chairman of the Iowa Student Loan board, said the grant program is carefully tailored to the crux of the problem. "It's something Iowa needs right away, and it can be done quickly without government appropriations," he said.

The new program won't be a cure-all. The grants would only pay a small fraction of a master's or doctoral degree in nursing, which can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars. Also, nurse salaries have increased over the years to the point where many nurses would have to take a significant pay cut if they switched to teaching.

Wangerin smiled wanly when asked what could be done about the disparity between nurse pay and nurse-educator pay. "That's the million-dollar question, and it's a national question," she said.