Texas Border Business
San Antonio – June 12, 2020 – The University of the Incarnate Word (UIW) is proud to announce that it has received two grants totaling $6,464,793 from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration. The funds are from the agency’s Scholarships for Disadvantaged Students program.
The total grant commitment will be awarded over the next five years in annual installments. The UIW Ila Faye Miller School of Nursing and Health Professions will receive $650,000 and the UIW School of Physical Therapy will receive $633,860 for the 2020-21 academic year and both schools will receive similar payouts annually through June 2025.
“This grant is the answer to our prayers especially in a time of crisis,” says Dr. Caroline Goulet, dean of the UIW School of Physical Therapy. “It will allow us to finally be able to facilitate access to a UIW physical therapy education to highly deserving students who embrace the Mission of the University to serve the underserved at a tuition cost comparable to that of a state program, decreasing the student debt load at graduation.”
“Over the course of the next five years, this grant will be a true gift,” says Dr. Holly Cassells, dean of the Ila Faye Miller School of Nursing and Health Professions. “The students who will be awarded have significant financial need and often find it difficult to persist in a full-time nursing program without holding jobs while going to school. The scholarship aims to relieve this pressure so that they can focus on their studies and complete nursing school successfully and on-time, and then serve their local communities as professional nurses. So, this grant will play a huge role in the outcomes of our traditional BSN (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) students.”
The Scholarships for Disadvantaged Students program provides financial awards to academic institutions that use the funding for scholarships to diverse students from disadvantaged backgrounds, enrolled in an eligible health professions program. The program encourages students who are awarded a scholarship to deliver healthcare in low income and rural communities where there is a shortage of health professionals upon their graduation.
