Assistance program
National Health Service Corps Scholarship Program
$464.0 Million committed in FY2022–FY2026
- Agency
- Health Resources and Services Administration, Health and Human Services, Department of
- Assistance
- Direct Payments for Specified Use
- CFDA number
- 93.288
- What it does
- The purpose of the NHSC SP is to enter into contracts with students who are in medical dental, or nursing school to provide scholarship assistance in return for a commitment to provide primary health services in eligible communities of need designated as Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs).
- Who benefits
- The participant must maintain full-time enrollment, with good academic standing in an accredited school in a State, the District of Columbia, or a U.S. Territory as a full-time student in a course of study leading to a health professional degree. The participant must maintain eligibility for Federal employment, be free of any Federal judgment liens, not be excluded, debarred, suspended or disqualified by a Federal agency, and have no conflicting service obligation.
- Who applies
- At the time of application, the applicant must be a U.S. citizen or national. The applicant must be enrolled and/or accepted for enrollment and in good academic standing in an accredited school in a State, the District of Columbia, or a U.S. Territory as a full-time student in a course of study leading to a health professional degree. The applicant must be eligible for Federal employment, be free of any Federal judgment liens, not be excluded, debarred, suspended or disqualified by a Federal agency, and have no conflicting service obligation. The applicant must submit an application and a signed contract to the NHSC agreeing to accept payment of scholarship and provide full-time primary health services in a HPSA.
- Authorized by
- (42 USC 254l)
- (42 USC 254d)
- (P.L. 114-10)
- (42 USC 254m-q)
- (P.L.117-2)
- Program site
- http://nhsc.hrsa.gov/scholarships/index.html ↗
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.
Recipients
This program's money is paid out as non-itemized direct payments — USAspending records it under a single aggregate, so individual recipients aren't listed. The dollars and agencies above are complete; the recipient roster isn't part of the public record for programs like this.
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