Assistance program
Grants to States for Loan Repayment
$124.4 Million committed in FY2021–FY2026
- Agency
- Health Resources and Services Administration, Health and Human Services, Department of
- Assistance
- Project Grants;Direct Payments for Specified Use
- CFDA number
- 93.165
- What it does
- To increase the availability of primary health care clinicians in Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) by assisting States in operating programs for the repayment of educational loans of health professionals in return for their practice in HPSAs.
- Who benefits
- Applicants for State programs must have completed a course of study required to practice independently without supervision as one of the following health care professionals: Doctor of Allopathic Medicine or Osteopathic Medicine, General Practice Dentist (D.D.S. or D.M.D.), Pediatric Dentist, Primary Care Certified Nurse Practitioner, Certified Nurse-Midwife, Primary Care Registered Nurse, Pharmacist, Primary Care Physician Assistant, Registered Clinical Dental Hygienist, Health Service Psychologist (formerly Clinical or Counseling Psychologist (Ph.D. or equivalent), Licensed Clinical Social Worker (master’s or doctoral degree in social work), Psychiatric Nurse Specialist, Substance Abuse Counselor, Mental Health Counselor, Licensed Professional Counselor (master’s or doctoral degree with a major study in counseling), Marriage and Family Therapist (master’s or doctoral degree with a major study in marriage and family therapy),Registered Nurse and Pharmacist. The primary care specialties approvable for physicians are: family medicine (and osteopathic general practice), internal medicine, including geriatricians, pediatrics, obstetrics/gynecology, and general psychiatry. General practitioners (physicians who have not completed residency training programs) are not eligible for funding under the SLRP. The primary care specialties approval for registered nurses, nurse practitioners and physician assistants are: adult, family, pediatrics, psychiatry/mental health, geriatrics, or women’s health. Participants must provide full-time clinical service for a minimum of two years in a public or non-profit entity located in a federally designated HPSA. Refer to the NHSC SLRP Notice of Funding Opportunity for specific requirements.
- Who applies
- Eligible entities include the 50 States, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau.
- Authorized by
- Public Health Service Act, Title III, Section 338I, 42 U.S.C. 254 q-1(h), as amended
- Section 2602 of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021 (P.L.117-2)
- Program site
- https://nhsc.hrsa.gov ↗
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments