There is a shortage of nurses in England, which meant that the government’s decision to scrap the NHS bursary scheme in 2015 led to a huge amount of debate. It can be argued that scrapping bursaries, and instead requiring students to take out loans to pay their tuition, will increase the number of university places – by as much as 10,000 additional places, through making it more attractive, financially speaking, for universities to offer places on nursing courses. This would lead to more nursing students, and thus more qualified nurses in the years to come. On the flipside, many argue that through scrapping the bursary the government will dissuade many people from less fortunate backgrounds, or mature students who are already faced with debt or have less time to repay a debt, from applying to study Nursing at all. Those applying will now have to cover a debt they did not have to consider before.
As it stands, a nurse will have to repay more debt than a banker who also studies a three-year degree. This is because the banker will be able to repay their loan fairly quickly, whereas with the lower starting salary of nurses, it will take far longer to repay their debt, meaning that the interest accrued on their loan will continue to rise.