Scholarships for Healthcare Students

Nearly all health care associations offer scholarship opportunities to aspiring specialists in their field.

Here's a brief list of top health care associations that offer scholarships. Get to know the associations for your health school specialty. Chances are good that there are scholarship opportunities for your health school program.

State Departments of Public Health offer scholarships for aspiring nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurse midwives and physicians in order to promote quality health care within the state itself. Check with the Department of Public Health in your state for scholarship opportunities.

• Gates Millennium Scholarship: Funded by a one-billion-dollar endowment from Bill and Melinda Gates, these scholarships focus on promoting academic excellence among minority students studying public health, education, engineering, library science, mathematics or the sciences.
   
• National Health Service Corp Scholarship Program: These student scholarships are funded by the U.S. Department of Health and are geared toward health care students in training.

• College Scholarships.org: One of the leading resources for scholarship money for students, scholarships are available by minority, degree level, subject, state, among other categories.
   
• Minority Scholarships and Fellowship Database for Medicine, Public Health and Related Fields: This site features a comprehensive list of organizations offering scholarships along with links to each donor's specific scholarship website.
   
• U.S. Army Health Professionals Scholarship Program: The military is aware of how vital health care services are, which is why they offer military scholarship programs for several healthcare and psychology fields.
   
• IHS Scholarship Program: You'll find scholarships for American Indians and Alaska natives which are designed to provide American Indian students educational opportunities in hopes that they will graduate and return so help their communities.
   
• National Merit Scholarships: Students qualify for this scholarship by excelling on the PSAT in high school. The 50,000 students with the highest PSAT scores nationally are whittled down to approximately 8,200 finalists who will each receive a $2,500 merit scholarship.
   
• Truman Scholarships: Students compete for these prestigious scholarships during their junior year of undergraduate study. Winning scholars receive up to $30,000 in funding to pursue graduate studies in a variety of public service fields, including health care.