The Future Advancement of Academic Nursing (FAAN) Act adds a new grant program to Part D of Title VIII of the Public Health Service Act to help schools of nursing increase student enrollment and faculty, modernize programs and infrastructure, and strengthen preparedness for public health emergencies and pandemics. The program is intended to target nursing workforce shortages and expand clinical education capacity in areas of highest need.
The bill sets priorities intended to steer awards toward institutions serving medically underserved communities, health professional shortage areas, certain higher education institutions identified in the Higher Education Act, and rural or noncontiguous states and territories. It also requires program reporting and authorizes federal appropriations to fund awards and oversight.
At a Glance
What It Does
The Secretary of Health and Human Services, through HRSA, may award competitive grants to schools of nursing for expanding enrollment and faculty, modernizing instructional infrastructure (including simulation and telehealth), establishing clinical partnerships, and improving curricula and research training. Grants may support activities tied to emergency preparedness as well as routine program enhancement.
Who It Affects
Accredited schools of nursing, health care facilities that host clinical placements (including community health centers and nurse-managed clinics), nursing faculty and prospective students—particularly those from underrepresented or disadvantaged backgrounds—and HRSA as the administering agency.
Why It Matters
The program targets persistent bottlenecks—faculty shortages, limited clinical placements, and outdated training technologies—that constrain the supply of nurses. By directing federal funding toward modernization and partnerships in underserved regions, the legislation attempts to expand the pipeline where workforce gaps are most acute.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill creates a discrete grant authority—added to Part D of Title VIII—enabling the HHS Secretary, through HRSA, to make awards to schools of nursing. Eligible uses are broad and include activities aimed at increasing and retaining students (with a focus on disadvantaged and underrepresented groups), hiring and retaining faculty, building or expanding clinical education through partnerships and preceptors, and upgrading physical and virtual training infrastructure.
The statute explicitly lists examples such as simulation labs, augmented reality tools, telehealth technology, and audiovisual equipment.
Grant selection emphasizes a set of priority categories: institutions located in or preparing students for medically underserved areas, health professional shortage areas, institutions named under section 371(a) of the Higher Education Act, and programs serving rural or noncontiguous jurisdictions. The Secretary is also instructed to consider equitable geographic distribution when practically possible, leaving room for administrative discretion in allocation across regions.Award recipients must submit annual reports to the Secretary on their activities under the grant, and HHS must produce a comprehensive, public report to specified Congressional committees within five years.
That congressional report must list recipients and locations, provide deidentified and disaggregated student enrollment and graduation figures where available, analyze effects on faculty hiring and clinical partnerships, assess infrastructure modernization outcomes, and offer recommendations to improve the program. The bill authorizes federal funding to support the program and modifies the Part D heading to reflect a broader focus on strengthening nurse education.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The statute authorizes $1,000,000,000 for the program, with those funds available until expended.
Recipients must submit annual reports to HHS; HHS must deliver a public report to Senate HELP and House Energy and Commerce committees within 5 years.
Priority for awards explicitly includes institutions serving medically underserved areas, health professional shortage areas, institutions listed under HEA section 371(a), and programs serving rural or noncontiguous states and territories.
Permissible uses name specific training technologies and approaches—simulation, augmented reality, telehealth, virtual and physical laboratories—and support for faculty hiring, mentorship, and preceptor partnerships.
The Secretary may prioritize equitable geographic distribution but retains discretion in selecting grant recipients and defining award scope and size.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Short title: 'FAAN Act'
This single-line provision gives the bill its formal short title: the Future Advancement of Academic Nursing Act (FAAN Act). Practically, it allows subsequent references to the statute and signals the bill's focus for administrative guidance and appropriation language.
Creates a new HRSA grant program for nursing education enhancement and modernization
The core of the bill inserts a new statutory section authorizing HRSA to award grants to schools of nursing for eight broad categories of activity: expanding student enrollment and retention; faculty recruitment and retention; clinical education partnerships; modernization of infrastructure and technology; curricular and program development; training for nurse researchers; interdisciplinary partnerships; and other Secretary-approved activities. Grant awards are discretionary and competitive; the statute does not set award amounts, durations, or matching requirements, leaving those specifics to HRSA's implementation.
Priority criteria for selecting awardees
The statute requires HRSA to give selection priority to schools that operate in or prepare students to serve medically underserved areas, health professional shortage areas, institutions listed in HEA section 371(a), and those serving rural or noncontiguous states and territories. These criteria create a statutory preference framework that HRSA must apply when evaluating applications, which will shape outreach, scoring, and award rules in grant guidance.
Permitted uses and reporting at the recipient level
The permitted uses list is concrete—programs to boost enrollment (with emphasis on disadvantaged students), faculty hiring, partnerships with clinical sites, simulation and telehealth investments, and research training. Each grantee must file an annual report to HHS describing activities funded by the grant and other information HHS requires. That reporting requirement places administrative obligations on schools and creates the data foundation for program evaluation.
Five-year Congressional report and public disclosure
HHS must compile and publish a report to the Senate HELP Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee within five years that lists recipients, summarizes student enrollment and graduation data (deidentified and disaggregated where available), analyzes impacts on faculty hiring, clinical partnerships, and infrastructure modernization, and offers recommendations. The combination of public disclosure and committee reports creates accountability but hinges on the availability and quality of grantee-supplied data.
Funding authorization and technical change to part heading
The bill authorizes $1,000,000,000 to carry out the program, available until expended—an open availability clause that gives HHS flexibility in award timing. The final short section removes the word 'Basic' from the heading of Part D of Title VIII, a technical edit that broadens the heading to reflect the expanded statutory mission.
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Explore Healthcare in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Prospective and current nursing students from disadvantaged, rural, or underrepresented backgrounds — the bill prioritizes recruitment, mentorship, and retention programs targeted at these cohorts, which can lower access barriers and improve completion rates.
- Schools of nursing in medically underserved areas and health professional shortage areas — priority status increases their chances to secure competitive funding for faculty hires, clinical partnerships, and training technology upgrades.
- Community health centers, nurse-managed clinics, and local hospitals — the law explicitly encourages partnerships and preceptor arrangements, which can expand clinical placement capacity and deepen local workforce pipelines.
- Nurse faculty from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups — the statute emphasizes hiring and retention with an emphasis on increasing faculty diversity, creating clearer funding streams for recruitment and support.
- Nursing education technology vendors and simulation providers — authorized uses name specific technologies (simulation, augmented reality, telehealth), making providers of those solutions potential grant partners or contractors.
Who Bears the Cost
- Schools of nursing — they must prepare competitive grant applications and comply with annual reporting requirements, which imposes administrative and data-collection burdens; institutions also face sustainability risk when grant-funded programs end.
- HRSA and HHS — the agency will absorb program administration, oversight, and evaluation costs and must develop guidance on priorities, award sizes, and equitable geographic distribution without additional legislative detail.
- Clinical partners (community clinics, hospitals) — expanding clinical placements increases preceptor and supervisory workload; these partners may need to dedicate staff time or resources to training and coordination.
- Congressional appropriations process — while the bill authorizes funding, actual outlays depend on future appropriations actions, which may force prioritization decisions across competing federal programs.
- Programs and institutions that do not meet the priority criteria — competitive awards mean some schools, particularly those in well-resourced urban settings or without existing partnerships, may lose out despite having viable modernization projects.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between speed and sustainability: the program is designed to rapidly expand training capacity and modernize instruction where shortages are acute, but federal grants—especially one-time investments in infrastructure or short-term hiring subsidies—may not produce durable increases in faculty capacity or clinical placements without ongoing funding, regulatory alignment, and local clinical capacity-building. Policymakers must choose whether to prioritize fast, visible expansion or slower, sustained investments tied to long-term workforce outcomes.
The statute leaves several important implementation choices to HHS and HRSA, creating uncertainty for applicants. The bill enumerates permissible activities and priority categories but does not specify award sizes, performance metrics, project periods, or whether recipients must provide matching funds.
Those omissions give HRSA flexibility to tailor grants but also introduce timing and planning challenges for schools that need multi-year budgeting assurances to hire faculty or build infrastructure.
Measurement and sustainability pose further tensions. The statute mandates a comprehensive five-year report with disaggregated data where available, yet it relies on grantees to supply that information and does not set clear short-term performance metrics or funding for longitudinal tracking.
The program targets clinical placement expansion, but clinical site capacity and preceptor availability are local constraints that federal dollars alone cannot remove. Finally, the bill focuses on capacity-building and technology upgrades but does not address state licensure, scope-of-practice rules, or accreditation standards that can limit how quickly expanded cohorts enter the workforce and where they may practice.
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