Maryland Nursing Students Can Get 0% Loans and Pay Nothing Until They Earn Over $50K

Maryland is putting $3 million behind a new zero-interest loan program for nursing students, an initiative announced Thursday, August 20th, by Governor Wes Moore and the national nonprofit Social Finance to chip away at a statewide shortage of roughly 7,000 open nursing positions.

The Maryland Pay It Forward Fund pairs $2 million from the state’s Talent Innovation Fund with $1 million in philanthropic money from Blue Meridian Partners, a group that pools donor dollars to scale economic mobility programs. The money is earmarked for students in Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) programs, the two-year credential that leads to RN licensure. State officials expect it to reach about 80 students in year one.

Here is the part that has nursing students paying attention: the loans carry no interest, borrowers do not start repaying until they are earning more than $50,000 a year, and, per Social Finance, “repayments never exceed what they originally borrowed.”

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The fund offers two kinds of support. Tuition gap loans cover up to $5,000 in remaining tuition and fees after scholarships and financial aid are applied. Living expense loans cover up to $500 a month, capped at $12,000 over a two-year program, for costs like transportation, child care and housing.

That second bucket is the unusual piece. Most nursing aid packages stop at tuition, even though rent, gas and child care are what typically force students out mid-program. Tracy Palandjian, CEO and co-founder of Social Finance, said the design is deliberate: “By pairing zero-interest loans with meaningful living expense support, the Maryland Pay It Forward Fund addresses the full picture of what can keep a nursing degree out of reach for residents who could otherwise succeed in this field.”

Repayment works on flat monthly payments after a student finishes the degree. Any borrower earning $50,000 or less can apply for income-based deferment, during which “their monthly payment obligation is $0.” Dollars that do come back are recycled into loans for the next group of students, which is where the “pay it forward” name comes from. Ascent Funding is originating the loans and Launch is servicing them.

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Why Maryland Is Betting on the Two-Year Nursing Pipeline

The demand numbers are not subtle. A Comptroller of Maryland analysis released this spring found that in 2025, registered nurses had the highest number of job openings of any healthcare occupation in the state, averaging about 9,000 unique openings a month against roughly 1,800 new hires. The same comptroller report flagged an aging healthcare workforce and looming federal Medicaid cuts as compounding pressures. Longer term, the Maryland Hospital Association has projected the state’s RN shortage growing to 13,800 full-time equivalents by 2035.

The pilot launches in the 2026-2027 academic year at the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), the first Maryland community college to sign on. CCBC President Sandra Kurtinitis said in the announcement that “too often, students with the talent and determination to succeed in nursing face financial challenges that make program completion more difficult.” Other community colleges can contact the program about joining, though no expansion schedule has been published.

Maryland Department of Labor Secretary Portia Wu framed the fund as a workforce play, saying “cost shouldn’t stand in the way of talented Marylanders who want to become nurses and serve their communities.” Inez Stewart, a Governor’s Workforce Development Board member and chief human resources officer at Johns Hopkins Medicine, added that she has “seen firsthand how financial pressure keeps talented, capable people from completing their nursing degrees, even when they have what it takes to succeed.”

The fund joins other state pipeline efforts, including licensed practical nurse apprenticeships and health occupation training through EARN Maryland, which has put nearly $7.5 million toward training certified nursing assistants, patient care technicians and similar roles under the Moore-Miller administration. The program was designed by a working group spanning the Governor’s Executive Office, the Maryland Department of Labor, the Maryland Department of Health, the Maryland Higher Education Commission, the Governor’s Office for Children and the Governor’s Workforce Development Board.

For anyone considering starting an ADN in Maryland, this might be the perfect time to apply. 

A few caveats worth naming. These are still loans, not scholarships or grants, and they add to whatever federal aid a student is already carrying. Access is limited to CCBC for now, so most Maryland nursing students will not be eligible in year one. Plus, 80 students is a small number against a shortage measured in thousands, which makes this more of a proof of concept than a fix.

It’s also worth noting that graduates will hold an ADN, not a BSN, and some hospitals prefer or require the four-year credential for hiring. The state frames the ADN as an on-ramp to a later RN-to-BSN program, but the fund itself covers only the ADN.

The broader signal matters for nurses everywhere. States have leaned on sign-on bonuses and loan forgiveness aimed at nurses already licensed. Funding living expenses on the front end, before licensure, is a different theory of the shortage: that the pipeline leaks not because people do not want to be nurses, but because they cannot afford the two years it takes to become one.

Maryland is not testing that theory alone. Social Finance already runs Pay It Forward funds in Colorado, New Jersey, and San Diego, and New Jersey’s program expanded to cover nursing students at Ocean County College this week. If completion rates hold up across these pilots, expect more states and health systems to adopt the structure.

🤔 Would $500 a month for rent, gas and child care have changed how you got through nursing school, or is the real barrier something no loan can fix? Tell us in the comments.