Penn Medicine joined a nurse retention effort that pays up to $40K in student loan debt
Penn will also repay up to $105,000 in debt for nurse anesthetists, up to $65,000 for pharmacists and acute care nurse practitioners or physician assistants, and $30,000 for respiratory therapists.
Penn Medicine has joined Temple Health in a nurse retention program that repays up to $40,000 in student loan debt over three years and is designed to reduce turnover and help health systems build pipelines of healthcare workers at a time of looming staff shortages.
“The cost of turnover is very high,” said Jim Ballinghoff, chief nursing executive for the University of Pennsylvania Health System, in an interview this month about the addition, called Scholars Network, to Penn’s retention efforts.
Ballinghoff did not give a cost figure. The national average last year was $60,090 per bedside registered nurse, according to a survey of 527 hospitals by NSI Nursing Solutions Inc., a nurse recruitment firm based in Lancaster County. NSI said the turnover rate nationally was 17.6%.
Penn is also promising debt repayment for acute-care nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurse anesthetists, pharmacists, and respiratory therapists. The relief ranges from $30,000 for respiratory therapists to $105,000 for nurse anesthetists. It shows that Penn is investing in staff and counting on them to stay, Ballinghoff said.
Temple joined Scholars Network in 2024 and has chosen 50 nursing students for the program, promising nearly $2 million in loan repayment. Nearly 30 of them are already in full-time nursing jobs at Temple, the nonprofit said. Operating in six states, Scholars Network said it has arranged $100 million in commitments for loan repayment.
The goals of Scholars Network
Scholars Network aims to help hospitals build and keep a skilled workforce and to help universities respond more effectively to healthcare labor market demands, said Sam Maron, a physician-consultant who founded the organization as part of Noodle Corp., a New York higher education consulting firm.
Before launching Scholars Network four years ago, Maron worked as a consultant with BCG, also known as Boston Consulting Group, helping state governments with healthcare workforce development efforts. Later, he did the same thing with health systems.
“You encounter this dynamic where a lot of hospitals spend as much to recruit and retain that talent for the first couple of years of a person’s career as the entire cost of education to enter that role in the first place,” he said.
The idea behind Scholars Network, Maron said, is to commit some of that investment in retention earlier, selecting candidates while they are still in school, ideally two years before they graduate.
Scholars Network works with the schools “to make sure they’re being responsive to the feedback of the employer about the quality and the quantity of candidates that are coming through,” he said.
Pennsylvania is a big market for the organization because the state is projected to have large labor shortages, Maron said. In addition to Penn and Temple, Guthrie Clinic, Penn Highlands Healthcare, and WellSpan Health also participate. The health systems pay Scholars Network a placement fee.
On the higher education side of Scholars Network, Penn and Temple have joined Duquesne University, University of Pittsburgh, and some of the state schools, such as Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Maron said. The total number of schools in Pennsylvania is about 20, he said.
Scholars Network received state support for a pilot in 2024. The fiscal 2025-26 budget contained $2.5 million to support loan repayments. The state money flows through the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency and is matched by hospitals.
The cost of turnover
Staff shortages can impact revenue. In 2023, Temple experienced a slowdown in the number of lung transplants because of a shortage of certified registered nurse anesthetists. The next year, Temple started a CRNA program, and is promising $40,000 in debt repayment for CRNAs under Scholars Network.
Ballinghoff said Penn had not experienced that scenario because it would always resort to temporary agency staff. But those workers are very costly compared to regular employees.
For Ballinghoff, the cost of turnover centers on the amount of time it takes to train new nurses. For nurses working complex areas, like critical cares, operating rooms, and emergency departments, “we need to invest six months in those employees in order to make sure that they’re confident and able to provide safe, effective care.”
The amount of debt repayment for different positions is based in part on how much it’s worth to Penn or another employer to, for example, “bring in a respiratory therapist who’s willing to commit to three years,” Maron said.
Among the advantages of loan repayment over signing bonuses is that IRS rules allow employers to provide up to $5,250 in tax-free educational benefits annually. “That increases the impact of these payments from Penn or for any other employer,” Maron said.
