Page 25 - BusinessWest May 12, 2025

“It’s concerning
that you could
get three out
of four years
through nursing
school and then
potentially leave
without a degree,
not be able to
pay back your
student loans,
not necessarily
have an income
to support your
family.”
ern Mass Completes emerged from a growing focus on access to
post-secondary institutions and the emerging realization that the
biggest issue isn’t enrollment, but persistence and completion.
“From there, we really started to look at the areas where stu-
dents were more apt to encounter financial barriers to completion,”
she told BusinessWest. “And then the pandemic hit, and we knew
there was a shortage in the nursing and allied health-sciences
fields.”
So the nonprofit launched a pilot program at four local colleges,
providing financial grants to 20 nursing students. When the results
came back positive, the program was expanded to 10 institutions
and 50 students, some of them not in nursing but in health scienc-
es, as not every school has a nursing program.
“We did that with the same sort of intention — how do we miti-
gate any financial barriers to completion — providing them with
a grant during their time in school so that they could reduce their
work hours, use it for food, gas, whatever it was that they needed
that could impede their completion,” Hurst explained. “And we
followed that up with providing them with a grant toward their
NCLEX exam so they could be prepared to go right out into the
workforce.”
While the Community Foundation is still working on next steps
— determining what lessons can be gleaned from the pilot and how
they can be applied to an overall workforce strategy in the region’s
healthcare economy — it’s clear that students reaching the finish
line is critical not only to their own career success, but to the long-
term growth of a key sector.
Meeting a Need
Hurst listed a number of factors that Western Mass Completes
seeks to address:
• The demand for skilled nurses has been at an all-time high
and escalated with COVID-19, yet many aspiring nurses struggle to
complete their education due to financial barriers.
• While tuition is a significant cost, smaller, but critical, expenses
— like certification exam fees, technology costs, transportation to
clinical training, medical equipment, and scrubs — can be the decid-
Denise Hurst says Western Mass Completes has undoubtedly
helped change the trajectory of some nursing students’ lives.
Staff Photo
ing factor between completing a degree or dropping out of an aca-
demic program.
• These challenges disproportionately affect students from low-
income backgrounds and those without financial safety nets.
• Investing in students not only supports individuals, but
strengthens the entire healthcare system by ensuring communities
have access to well-trained professionals.
“Even though we might not know what particular niche of nurs-
ing they’ll go into,” she noted, “it’s important to lift up the fact that
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MONTHLY FEATURE 25
MAY 12, 2025