The University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing will offer new loan forgiveness and fellowship programs to encourage nursing students to pursue further education and fill nurse educator positions in the state, according to a university press release.

The overall goal of the program is to address the statewide nursing faculty shortage, according to the release.

Led by UW-Eau Claire and funded through a UW System incentive grant program, the $3.2 million “Nurses for Wisconsin” initiative comes in response to predictions that the state could see a shortage of 20,000 nurses by 2035, the release said.

Fifty to 80 percent of qualified undergraduate students who applied to nursing schools at four UW System institutions in 2012-’13 were denied admission, primarily because there was not enough qualified nursing faculty to teach them, according to the release.

The program also offers to pay up to $50,000 in outstanding debt in return for a three-year teaching commitment.

In addition to UW-Madison, nurses enrolling in doctoral programs at UW-Oshkosh, UW-Milwaukee and UW-Eau Claire will receive fellowships from the initiative.

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