Recruitment and Diversity in Nursing Act of 2003

The Recruitment and Diversity in Nursing Act of 2003 (H.R. 920) was designed to address nursing shortages by providing federal scholarships to "nontraditional" nursing students. In exchange for this financial aid, recipients would be required to serve for at least two years at healthcare facilities facing critical staffing shortages.

The bill also aimed to build a long-term pipeline for the profession by funding recruitment and awareness programs in elementary and secondary schools. To promote diversity within the field, the legislation required that at least half of these outreach efforts focus on schools with high populations of nontraditional students. For citizens, this bill sought to increase the number of available nurses in underserved communities while creating new educational pathways for individuals entering the healthcare workforce.