Penn Medicine is attempting to ease Pennsylvania’s projected nursing shortage by offering an introductory program for high school students.
The Howley ASPIRE Nurse Scholars Program at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania is one of several initiatives in the area that are working towards bridging the impending shortage. It launched in January 2023 through a partnership with La Salle University, and supports high school juniors who are interested in pursuing nursing as a profession.
Participants attend weekly Saturday sessions at HUP from February through April of their junior year. In their senior year, they continue to attend “enrichment sessions” and “receive support as they apply to their college BSN program.”
All students who complete the program receive a $500 stipend. Those who go on to attend La Salle get the opportunity to receive scholarship funding and a part-time job at HUP.
The program is sponsored by the Ohio-based Howley Foundation, which was created to help “all students, regardless of economic means, receive the best education possible.”
ASPIRE is run by Program Manager Gabrielle Mariotti and Nursing Professional Development Specialist Diana Rodenbaugh.
Mariotti told the Inquirer that the program intends to support Philadelphia students who may not have the proper financial or social support to enroll in a nursing program.
Rodenbaugh added that the participants “are providing direct patient care as early as their freshman year, which is pretty unlike, I think, any other nursing student.”
The program’s goal is to “increase diversity in healthcare through opportunities and economic mobility,” according to a January 2025 Instagram post.
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While pipeline programs like the ASPIRE help lessen the nursing shortage, Penn researchers say recruitment alone is not sufficient to ensure long-term sustainability — according to the University’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics.
At a Sept. 18 Penn Med symposium on the global nursing shortage, Director of the School of Nursing’s Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research Matthew McHugh said the shortage cannot be solved by “simply producing more nurses.” Instead, according to the center’s research, hospitals must address the conditions causing nurses to leave the profession, including burnout.
The symposium also emphasized the importance of retaining nurses who have already been trained. CHOPR’s Nurses4All project — which maintains a survey of nurses and their working conditions — has produced evidence “emphasizing the importance of adequate staffing and favorable work environments for nurses,” according to the center.
The inaugural cohort of 43 ASPIRE scholars are currently studying nursing at La Salle, and are set to graduate in May. Applications for the 2027 cohort close on Nov. 6.
