Scholarships for Disadvantaged Students - Description: Doane University’s Master of Arts in Counseling (MAC) Scholarships for Behavioral Health Training for Service in High Need Areas (SBHT) program will award annual scholarships of up to $30,000 to 35 graduate students from economically, educationally, and geographically disadvantaged backgrounds, training them to serve as licensed Mental and Behavioral Health professionals. MAC SBHT leverages an established recruitment, retention, and training program for disadvantaged graduate students to address a critical need in Nebraska: a severe shortage of mental and behavioral health providers. Building on its strong commitments to recruit, train, and graduate students from disadvantaged backgrounds and place them in primary care and rural, Tribal, and other medically vulnerable communities (MVCs), MAC offers a robust curriculum with enhanced coursework, including integration with primary care and digital health technologies, as well as experiential training in clinics across 13 eastern Nebraska counties that are designated by HRSA as Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas. Need: The Doane MAC program serves a significant number of students who meet the HRSA SDS disadvantaged student requirements, with a 3-year average of 60.4% from 2022-2025. In 2024-2025, 32 of the 44 enrolled students (73%) were economically, geographically, and educationally disadvantaged; 9 of the 12 graduates (75%) were disadvantaged. The economic reality for most MAC students is that they are independent single adults, single parents, and hold full-time jobs in addition to taking courses; scholarships are essential to helping them attend graduate school, especially to cover living expenses if they have jobs and families to support. An average of 84% needed to take out loans to cover the Cost of Attendance. Those who need to work while studying can take longer to graduate, extending what is designed to be a three-year program to four, five, or six years. For disadvantaged students, scholarships are essential to help them attend graduate school, complete training, and graduate so they may assume jobs as soon as possible to address the workforce shortage in mental and behavioral health in Nebraska. Scholarships are also a strong incentive to recruit students from rural, Tribal, and other MVCs so they may return to help their home communities. Proposed Services: The MAC SBHT program draws on a successful framework for recruiting and retaining students from disadvantaged backgrounds, the MAC Rural Placement Program, funded by the Behavioral Health Education Center of Nebraska. Building on this foundation, Doane will implement effective strategies to increase enrollment of students from disadvantaged backgrounds and award them scholarships to increase retention rates and timely completion of their training program. Upon completing coursework, students will intern at experiential training sites in primary care settings and in rural, Tribal, and other MVCs, gaining real-world clinical experience under trained site supervisors. Doane MAC has agreements with 28 experiential sites that offer students a range of mental health conditions, patients, and practice settings, so students may practice in areas that meet their interests. To help students secure employment in high-need, high-demand areas, the MAC SBHT Program Director will coordinate an annual MAC SBHT Job Fair to connect job sites in primary care settings and in rural, Tribal, and other MVCs with trainees completing their clinical placements and graduating from the MAC Program. Other key program elements of the MAC SBHT program will include new recruiting methods and pathways – an Undergraduate Consortia and AHEC Alliance; new educational support and training opportunities that increase successful completion of their degree program – a Pathway-to-Practice SBHT Mentorship Network and a Proactive SDS Holistic Advising Model; and new retention strategies including a new SDS Community Advisory Board.
