Scholarships for Male Nursing Students

As a male nursing student, you are in the minority. As such, you are qualified for some scholarship competitions that aren’t available to just any nursing student. Why? There is a nursing shortage in many communities. A frequently stated goal is bringing people from traditionally underrepresented groups into the field.

There are some scholarships that are exclusively for male nursing students. It’s not just the well-known national competitions; there are also a scattering of competitions at the school level. There are additional nursing scholarships aimed at members of underrepresented groups. Some do mention males as being among their target audience.

Male Nursing Scholarship Opportunities and Requirements

The best known competitions, nationwide, are sponsored through the American Assembly for Men in Nursing. In partnership with Johnson & Johnson, they gave out twenty scholarships in 2009 alone. Most were for men seeking initial licensure as registered nurses.

You may have additional opportunities through your school. Larry Middleton and Eric Pucket, 2008 graduates of Lander University in South Carolina, set up a scholarship fund to encourage more men to pursue nursing.

If you attend Nassau Community College in New York, you may want to pursue the Arthur Mottola Nursing Scholarship. (In addition to being a male nursing student, you should be interested in outdoor activities.)

Iowa has at least two school-based nursing scholarships for men. At the University of Dubuque College of Nursing, you find the Shane Frederick Memorial Scholarship, given to a male nursing student who maintains a 3.0 and displays leadership, dedication, and teamwork. At Southwestern Community College, you find the Speelman/ Strauss Male Nursing Endowment.

If you don’t go to a school with an endowment set aside for male nursing students, you may well go to one that has a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This organization has made generous grants to many universities across the nation. Their goal? To increase diversity in nursing. A high proportion of the scholarships go to men; the percentage was 37% during the program’s second year of operation. Different schools may have slightly different policies for using their grant money. The University of Virginia has targeted students in accelerated master’s level entry programs.

Local organizations also have diversity as a goal. Cincinnati Children’s Hospital administers the William K. Schubert Scholarship Competition. The webpage notes that awards are for underrepresented groups, including male nurses and members of various ethnic groups. Candidates should be seeking initial RN licensing through a BSN or MSN program. Winners may receive up to $2,750 a year. The program representative is Owen Burke.

There is still another scholarship source you might tap: gender diversity scholarships. The University of Michigan LEAD Scholarships are designed to increase diversity. At least five are set aside for students whose gender is underrepresented in a particular field. This includes male nursing students; the class of 2012 is expected to include two LEAD-funded male nursing students, the class of 2013, one.

Duke University offers scholarships to accelerated BSN students who contribute to diversity for various reasons including gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.

Expert Advice About Applying

You might consider gender diversity scholarships even when they don’t explicitly mention male nurses. UCLA has two graduate level diversity fellowship programs. The application states that while they are not allowed to consider either race or gender when making student appointments, they can consider a person’s drive to overcome a disproportionate disadvantage. They can also consider the ways that a person’s background and interests could help them educate others about diversity.

While this particular competition might be a long shot, there is a lesson to be learned. There are a lot of programs with an investment in diversity even if, for one reason or another, they don’t have gender-based scholarships. There are also a lot of competitions that allow you to describe, in an essay, the barriers you have faced and the potential you have to give back to the community.

Contact Information for Male Nursing Scholarships