If you’re a healthcare leader, you know there is no end in sight to the nursing shortage. With 5% job growth on top of a retirement wave, healthcare organizations will need to fill nearly 190,000 nursing positions every year for the next decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But the problem isn't just about nurses, of course. It's about the entire care team that supports them. When hospitals lack certified nursing assistants, medical assistants, and patient care technicians, nurses can get pulled away from the clinical roles they trained for. That’s a recipe for burnout, job-switching, or early retirement.
Fortunately, some much-needed federal relief is on the horizon.
A New Federal Tool for Workforce Development
Under the Workforce Pell program that starts next July, lower-income students for the first time can receive up to an estimated $4,000 in federal financial aid for career education programs lasting just 8 to 15 weeks – which happens to fit the timeframe for many CNA, EMT, phlebotomist, or medical assistant training programs.
That’s a change from traditional Pell Grants, which require programs to last at least 15 weeks and 600 clock hours. In the past, many high-quality healthcare training programs fell short of those thresholds, making it impossible for students to secure federal grants.
With no federal aid available, some health systems have dipped into their own operating budgets to create affordable training programs that provide a steady pipeline of essential workers. For instance:
- Penn State Health partners with a local community college to provide 100% tuition coverage for medical assistant and phlebotomist training, with guaranteed employment after program completion.
- MaineHealth offers an “earn while you learn” CNA apprenticeship that pays students $17.34 per hour – plus benefits – throughout a training period that lasts 7 to 9 weeks.
Scotland Health, an Ascendient client in Laurinburg, NC, has an array of self-funded training programs including tuition reimbursement for both full-time and part-time staff, competitive nursing scholarships, and a surgical tech program developed with a local community college.
“We’re very fortunate with what we can offer,” says Christi Meggs, SVP for Human Resources at Scotland Health. “Our finances are good, and we are able to run operations without relying on HASP,” a federally funded program that provides a financial lifeline to many rural NC hospitals.
Even so, Christi says the Workforce Pell program will give hospitals like hers a chance to re-think and re-deploy their training budgets. For instance, the popular Legacy Nurse Scholarship program at Scotland Health allows five new teammates each year to pursue a nursing degree tuition free while earning full-time wages and benefits on a reduced work schedule.
Christi says she would love to have a similar program for allied health professionals, allowing them to earn credentials for MRI, CT, Medical Assistant, and others. That kind of expansion has not been possible until now, but federal support from the Workforce Pell program could change the math.
“David Pope, our CEO, is passionate about ‘homegrown talent,’” Christi says. “The lack of educated healthcare workers moving to rural North Carolina underscores the need for programs like Workforce Pell Grants. To keep the pipeline full, we have to invest in training for homegrown talent.”
A Narrow Window for Planning
For anyone looking to jump on this new opportunity, there is one catch: Programs must already be operating for at least one year in order to qualify for Workforce Pell. That means health systems interested in this opportunity need to move quickly by adapting existing training programs to meet federal requirements or partnering with community colleges to launch new ones.
The Department of Education will release final implementation guidance in the coming months, but the basic framework is clear. Programs must demonstrate strong job placement rates (at least 70%), meet state-defined workforce needs, and lead to recognized credentials.
Critics have noted that accreditation is not a requirement for certification programs, and for-profit “diploma mills” are expected to market their programs aggressively. The danger is that students will graduate from shady certification programs without the job skills that employers are looking for – not terribly helpful if you need workers who are ready to hit the ground running.
On its face, that does seem like a weakness of the Workforce Pell program, but I also see a real opportunity: To better attract students, community colleges should be eager to partner with health systems on designing a curriculum that matches demonstrated workforce needs in the local market. It’s not every day that two industries find themselves so perfectly aligned.
Reform Comes at a Critical Time
As we noted in a recent Ascendient blog post, changes in the tax code will make it harder to recruit entry-level workers, putting additional pressure on already tight labor markets. Workforce Pell arrives just as health systems need new strategies to address wage inflation and staffing challenges at the entry level.
Unlike shortages of physicians and specialized nurses – where AI can provide meaningful support through automated charting, clinical decision support, and streamlined administrative workflows – there is no technological workaround for hands-on tasks such as bathing, feeding, or transporting patients.
When care teams are fully staffed with well-trained support personnel, nurses can focus on assessment, medication management, care coordination, and the complex clinical thinking that represents their unique value. That’s a win for nurses, for patients, and for hospital finances.
