Scholarship and Tuition Credits for Students Working and Volunteering in the Healthcare Field
$500 Healthcare Worker Incentive Scholarship
In December University of Wisconsin System President Tommy Thompson announced an incentive for UW students with nursing skills and other health backgrounds to work on the front lines of Wisconsin’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The UW System has identified a need and is stepping up to help,” President Thompson said. “As Wisconsin deals with this terrible pandemic, the need for health care workers has never been greater. The UW System is glad to be able to offer this incentive to students, who can use this opportunity to learn and to help our fellow Wisconsinites.”
Members of the OSFA team reviewed 544 applications and awarded the scholarship to 522 students across various careers. In collaboration with the Bursar’s office, $261,000 was applied to students’ accounts in April and May.
We heard back from many students expressing their gratitude for the scholarship and thanking us for our work on reviewing, awarding and disbursing the scholarship funds.
$500 Vaccination Tuition Credit for Nursing and Pharmacy Students
In January 2021, the UW System expanded the credit originally extended to Nursing and Pharmacy students working in hospitals and other health care settings. The expansion offers a one-time $500 tuition credit for the spring 2021 semester to Nursing and Pharmacy students that provided COVID-19 vaccinations and worked a total of at least 16-hours between January 1st and March 31st. Then, on March 31st, the UW System extended the spring 2021 deadline to May 22nd allowing more Nursing and Pharmacy students to complete their 16-hour requirements. Moreover, a summer 2021 tuition credit was also included in the March announcement.
Team members in OSFA worked closely with the Associate Deans for Student Affairs in the School of Pharmacy and the Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs to develop an individualized document collection and vaccination verification process to meet the needs of their student populations and curriculum requirements. Email communication about the credit and process to the students was completed by the Schools. Additionally, OSFA team members collaborated with the Bursar’s Office, the International Faculty and Staff Services, and Human Resources Office to process and post the tuition credits to students’ accounts. To date, 404 students have received the spring 2021 tuition credit totalling $202,000. A handful of non-US citizen students are waiting to be processed due to the federal work authorization requirement.
Team members in OSFA continue to work closely with the Schools to collect documentation for the summer 2021 credit and will begin processing after the Aug. 31 deadline. As of today, one nursing student and 23 pharmacy students have submitted their summer 2021 tuition credit application.
Shout Outs
A huge THANK YOU to the following people who helped with these initiatives! While still in the midst of working through HEERF funding, these individuals developed processes and disseminated the information to students and campus partners, evaluated unexpected hiccups with a focus on supporting students, and maintained a positive and can-do attitude through it all.
| Office of Student Financial Aid | Bursar’s Office |
| Heidi Johnson – Lead for Healthcare Worker Scholarship Pahoua Xiong – Lead for Vaccination Tuition Credit Alex White – Lead for back-end processing and posting Kristen McRoberts Emma Crawford Brianne Camacho Karla Weber Nicole Schumacher Lo Klink Maggie Nowicki Kasie Strahl Justin Mumford Katy Weisenburger Shane Maloney Karie Cunningham | Ginger Perkins Laura Rader |