The House Appropriations Committee advanced its FY 2026 Labor, HHS, and Education spending bill with a $46.843 million (15.34%) cut to Title VIII Nursing Workforce Development Programs. That reduces federal Title VIII funding to $258.6 million — back to FY 2020 levels — and eliminates two programs outright: the Nurse Faculty Loan Program and the Nursing Workforce Diversity Program.
The Senate Appropriations Committee passed a contrasting bill by a 26-3 vote that preserves the full $303 million in Title VIII funding. The two chambers now need to reconcile the difference through the appropriations conference process before a final number takes effect. Given the bipartisan Senate margin, full elimination is unlikely, but the final figure will depend on broader budget negotiations.
What Title VIII Funds — And Why These Two Programs Specifically
Title VIII, administered through HRSA, is the primary federal investment in nursing workforce development outside of Medicaid and Medicare. It funds scholarships, loan repayment for nurses and faculty, advanced nursing education programs, and institutional grants to build nursing capacity in underserved and rural areas.
The two programs eliminated in the House bill address distinct but compounding problems:
The Nurse Faculty Loan Program provides loan forgiveness to nurses who become faculty and teach at nursing schools. The program directly addresses the faculty shortage that bottlenecks nursing school enrollment. The AACN documented that nursing programs turned away 65,766 qualified applicants in 2023 — not because of inadequate student demand, but because of insufficient faculty, clinical sites, and classroom capacity. Without faculty, you can't run the programs. Without the programs, you can't produce the nurses. The Nurse Faculty Loan Program is one of the few federal mechanisms specifically targeting this chokepoint.
The Nursing Workforce Diversity Program funds recruitment and retention of students from economically disadvantaged and underrepresented backgrounds. This matters not just for equity but for workforce geography: nurses are statistically more likely to practice in the communities they came from. Producing more nurses from rural and urban underserved communities increases the probability those nurses end up working in healthcare deserts. Eliminating this program reduces the supply of nurses going into the highest-shortage environments.
Context: Cuts During a Documented Nursing Shortage
The proposed cuts come against documented backdrop: HRSA projects a 263,870 RN shortage in 2026, the national RN vacancy rate sits at 9.6%, and NCSBN data shows 40% of nurses plan to leave the workforce within 5 years. The NCSBN launched its 2026 National Nursing Workforce Survey in March with results expected later this year — and the directional data from 2024 was already alarming.
The Trump administration's FY 2026 budget request called for eliminating most Title VIII programs entirely. The House bill is more moderate, but AACN and ANA have both called on Congress to match the Senate's full-funding position. AACN issued a statement calling the House proposal "deeply concerning" and noting that Title VIII investments produce measurable returns in nurses trained, retained, and deployed to underserved areas.
Specific Impact: Nursing Schools and Students
The practical effects ripple outward from the federal budget line. Nursing schools that rely on Title VIII grants for faculty salaries, equipment, and program expansion will face either budget gaps or program contraction. Students who would have received Nursing Workforce Diversity Program funding — scholarships, support services, retention grants — will have fewer resources or face program elimination at schools that can't backfill those dollars.
For nurses currently in school or planning to start: HRSA's Nurse Corps Scholarship and Loan Repayment programs are separate from the programs facing elimination and are preserved in both House and Senate versions. But the pipeline of future nurses entering the workforce through diversity-focused programs and faculty trained through faculty loan forgiveness is at risk if the House version prevails in conference.
What Nurses Can Do
Contact your Congressional representatives through AACN's advocacy page at aacnnursing.org or ANA's legislative tools at nursingworld.org. The conference process is where the final number will be decided — and nurse constituent contact with legislators has historically moved these funding debates. Deadline matters: the longer the conference runs without resolution, the more likely the House's lower number becomes the default baseline.