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Recognizing the need to attract nurses to work in Capital Region hospitals, Russell Sage College has launched the Russell Sage Nursing Career Start-up Grant with support from the Albany Med Health System.
Starting with the graduating class of December 2024, the grant offers Russell Sage College Bachelor of Science in Nursing graduates the opportunity to apply for up to $9,000 in grant awards if they stay in the region to work at acute care hospitals.
The grants can be used for any purpose, from expenses associated with their education to purchasing a car, and are meant to provide a strong start for nursing graduates through the early stages of their careers.
“With more than 300 nursing students enrolled in our bachelor of nursing program, Russell Sage plays a leading role in educating the region’s nurses. As a strong partner to our community’s healthcare providers, it is important to show our graduates the merits of working in the Capital Region,” said Russell Sage President Matthew Shaftel. “By attracting students to nursing and incentivizing them to work in our local acute-care hospitals with post-graduation grants, we can significantly address the nursing shortage.”
A 2023 report by the Capital Region Economic Development Council Healthcare Industry Workgroup noted more than 850 job postings for RNs between Albany Medical Center, St. Peter’s Hospital, and Ellis Hospital alone. The report noted, “The shortage of RNs has driven up costs at hospitals through an overreliance on travel nurses and contributed to high staff burnout and turnover.”
Russell Sage nursing graduates can apply for the program after their first year working at a Capital Region acute care hospital, such as Albany Medical Center, and can continue to apply after their second and third years of service in those facilities, with the grant award amount growing with each year of service.
After year one, graduates are eligible for $2,000, followed by $3,000 after year two, and $4,000 after year three.
“Our mission is to provide the highest quality patient care, and our talented workforce is the heart of it,” said Albany Med Health System President and CEO Dennis P. McKenna. “By partnering with Russell Sage to give their nursing graduates a leg up, we’re setting new nurses up for success and creating a pathway for them to join our incredibly skilled team to deliver the most advanced, specialized patient care that can be found in our region.”
The first pool of Russell Sage Nursing Career Start-up Grants will be awarded in April 2026. Applications will open in January 2026 for December 2024 Russell Sage nursing graduates who have marked their one-year anniversaries at eligible facilities.
Approximately 40 to 50 grants will be distributed in the first round of funding.
The grant program applies to employment at acute care hospitals in the following counties: Albany, Columbia, Greene, Rensselaer, Schenectady, Saratoga, and Warren counties. The grant program welcomes additional funders who want to support our Capital Region nursing workforce.
This program is one of several initiatives Russell Sage College, which has a more than 100-year history of training nurses, has undertaken to address the labor shortage. The college already partners with Albany Med Health System to offer a 30% tuition discount to Albany Medical Center employees for its graduate programs in nursing, preparing nurses to become nurse practitioners.
And understanding colleges need additional faculty support to educate more nurses, Albany Med Health System has provided nurses release time to serve as faculty in Russell Sage’s undergraduate nursing program, bringing their clinical expertise to the students and overseeing clinicals in the college’s nursing courses.
Meanwhile, the college also recently completed its first year of the I Can Achieve a Nursing Degree (ICAN) program, which works within and with marginalized and underrepresented communities to showcase employment opportunities in nursing and healthcare for our youth.
These efforts will build a more diverse community of healthcare professionals, improving the quality of care across the spectrum. This year’s program served 22 students at the Albany Leadership Charter School for Girls, and a summit to address representation in the healthcare workforce on October 25 and 26 at Russell Sage College’s Albany campus.
For more information on the Russell Sage Nursing Career Start-up Grant, visit sage.edu. To support the grant funds as a donor, contact Starlyn D’Angelo, director of corporate, government, and foundation relations at Russell Sage College, at [email protected] or 518-244-2475.