AU Army ROTC provides scholarship opportunities, leadership training, upper division placement, and a future career to college nursing students. Students may enroll as a freshman, sophomore, or as late as their junior year in college. Upon successful completion of the program, students are commissioned as officers in the Army Nurse Corps, and serve as nurses at military hospitals and medical facilities in the active Army and the Army Reserves.
If students want to try the program out first, there is no obligation for taking the class during freshman and sophomore year. If the program feels like a good fit, students should apply for a a scholarship. If not, students can drop it like any other class.
Students will have an opportunity to receive a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army Nurse Corps. After commissioning, students will attend the Basic Officer Leadership Course at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas, in route to their first clinical assignment as an Army Nurse. Assignments are based on their input of location preference and their performance throughout both the nursing and ROTC programs.
After just one year at your initial assignment, students will have the opportunity to attend a clinical specialty course in one of the following areas: Perioperative Nursing, OB/GYN Nursing, Critical Care Nursing, and Psychiatric/Mental Health Nursing. As of 2020, the starting annual salary for a 2nd Lieutenant is between $58,000 and $63,000. Army Nursing Officers can expect to make between $96,000 and $99,000 after four years of service, and over $119,000 after ten years of service.
In addition to the salary, Army Nursing Officers receive 30 days of paid vacation per year, have full medical and dental coverage for their entire immediate family, and are eligible for retirement benefits after 20 years of service (retiring at 42 based on the average college graduate’s age).
An individual incurs no obligation to the military through application for a scholarship or initial scholarship acceptance. An obligation occurs only at the time that the military begins paying for a student’s education.
Active duty commitment for scholarship students is four years. Students then have the choice to exit active duty and complete four years in the Army Reserves or Inactive Ready Reserves. The Army Reserves requires serving as an Army Nurse Corps Officer one weekend a month and for two weeks every summer. Inactive Ready Reserves requires only that a scholarship student's name is placed on a roster for call-up in a national emergency.
Nursing students have the opportunity to attend the Nurse Summer Training Program (NSTP) between their junior and senior years in the nursing program. After completing Advanced Camp, nursing students can request to work in an Army hospital for three weeks at locations across the globe, to include Hawaii, Korea, Germany, and in the United States.
Each student will be assigned an Army Nurse Corps officer as their preceptor/instructor to guide them through the nursing process. Students will learn valuable management and leadership skills and have the opportunity to apply them in a health care environment, setting themselves ahead of their peers when they return to campus. Students can request to work in the nursing specialty of their choice.
Students are paid for the three weeks, and all travel and room & board expenses are paid for by the Army.
There are two, three, and four year scholarships available to nursing students. These scholarships provide:
