Caitlin Payne had a difficult path to the upskilling she needed to move ahead in her healthcare career while attending to the needs of her family, which includes four boys, two with chronic health conditions.
But joining a generous Earn While You Learn (EWYL) program offered by her employer, Charlottesville, Va.-based University of Virginia Health (UVA Health) in conjunction with a nearby community college, Piedmont Virginia Community College (PVCC), last year has made that path a great deal easier.
The program enables Payne, 33, a UVA Health ambulatory program assistant coordinator, to progress toward an associate degree in nursing from PVCC, which she is expected to receive in May 2026, while continuing to work full-time at UVA Health. She studies PVCC classes 16 hours a week and works at UVA Health 24 hours a week, yet is paid by UVA Health for all 40 hours.
The program covers all costs of her PVCC education and training, without deductions from pay.
A UVA Health nursing position awaits her at her unit once she graduates. She is also currently applying to UVA to pursue a bachelor’s of nursing because her ultimate goal, registered nurse (RN) care coordinator, requires a bachelor’s degree. The RN care coordinator position would allow her to nearly double her current salary, she says.
“Without Earn While You Learn, it wouldn’t be possible for me to do this,” Payne says. “I can’t leave employment to go to school. The insurance it allows me to retain as an employee means the world to us — I have to have it. And I get to keep my full salary and this didn’t take time away from my family. I’m forever grateful for this program.”
Easing the financial burden
The Virginia Department of Health reports 43% of nurses carry educational debt, and in the case of those under 40 years of age, it rises to 57%, says Beth Mehring, RN, UVA Health’s director of the EWYL program, citing data from “Virginia’s Registered Nurse Workforce: 2024.”
“On average the median debt is $30,000 to $40,000, but EWYL students like Caitlin graduate with no student debt,” she says.
For each year of EWYL education, UVA Health requires a commitment of a year of subsequent employment at UVA Health, Mehring says. Mehring herself began her career as a nurse at PVCC, and she and her sister were the first in their family to receive any college education, Mehring says. She later earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Eastern Mennonite University during her 39-year career working at UVA Health.
Addressing a local workforce shortage
UVA Health’s EWYL program was launched in June 2022 by UVA Health University Medical Center CEO Wendy Horton to respond to a shortage of health professionals in different disciplines at UVA Health.
“We knew that we did not have enough applicants into our critical positions; there just simply wasn’t an applicant pool,” Mehring says. “So what we decided was, ‘Let’s hire people who are not trained, and let’s then provide the training for them and ask them for a service commitment in return.’”
Upskilling existing UVA Health employees like Payne is one version of the program, termed the EWYL advanced program.
The other UVA Health EWYL program is training individuals with no health background to become entry-level employees (entry-level EWYL). PVCC is an educational partner for both programs through memoranda of understandings with UVA Health. d
Advanced EWYL
On the for-credit side, PVCC serves as the UVA Health’s educational partner for the largest EWYL advanced program, which trains employees like Payne to become nurses through an associate degree program and prepares them for their NCLEX-RN exam to get licensure as a registered nurse. Begun in August 2024, the nursing associate degree EWYL program currently supports 30 UVA Health employees, with another 19 anticipated to matriculate in August, and a projected additional 15 to join in January, Mehring says.
In addition, in August, PVCC and UVA Health will begin an EWYL paramedic certificate program. Some of the EWYL advanced positions also require prerequisite courses that UVA Health employees can take at PVCC, notes Nicole Winkler, PVCC’s ean of the Division of Health and Life Sciences.
“They would first need to complete any required prerequisites before applying to one of our programs. Once they are admitted, they would then return to their employer, UVA Health, and say, ‘I’ve been accepted into the AAS Nursing Degree program, and I would like to participate in the earn-while-you-learn option.’ Then, UVA Health would say yes or no, depending on how many spots they have. If the answer is yes, they would become an EWYL student,” Winkler says.
On the UVA end, UVA Health has participation requirements that include acceptance by PVCC, a full-time employee in good performance standing, one year of tenure at UVA and manager support, Mehring says.
Entry-level EWYL
The other entry-level EWYL program began in June 2022 and targets the recruitment and training of individuals with no or limited health sector backgrounds for entry-level UVA Health positions. Those positions include pharmacy technicians, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), phlebotomists/specimen management technicians, certified medical assistants, patient care technicians, sterile processing technicians and access associates. For entry into this EWYL program, only a high school diploma or GED is required.
Under the program, UVA hires the EWYL student trainees and pays them salary and benefits. PVCC provides the students an intensive, non-credit training program of eight to 12 weeks to train them on health basics so they can start work as an entry-level employees upon completion. UVA Health insures that their tuition is covered after PVCC evaluates the student for available funding and grant opportunities, says Toni Peterson, PVCC’s workforce development program manager for healthcare and wellness.
More than 700 individuals have entered various UVA Health entry-level EWYL programs to date, Mehring says. The program completion rate is about 80% and the one-year retention rate at UVA Health is about 86%, Mehring says.
Without EWYL, the cost of a clinical medical assistant training of a similar duration to the entry-level EWYL program at PVCC would be roughly $3,900, Peterson says.
Upon graduation, graduates receive permanent UVA Health jobs and a promotion.
Not surprisingly, demand far outstrips supply of spots in the entry-level EWYL program, with an average of 800 applicants for each 80 entry-level EWYL positions that open three times per year, Mehring says.
Expanding efforts
Mehring says the program is definitely one that can be exported with willing partners. She says that UVA Health will have seven educational partnerships by 2026, including relationships with Richmond-based J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College for medical lab technology, a relationship with Lynchburg-located Central Virginia Community College for respiratory therapy, and with Roanoke-based Virginia Western Community College for radiation oncology.
PVCC also seeks to replicate its EWYL success with other healthcare partners, says Leonda Keniston, vice president of academic affairs and workforce development at PVCC.
“Our Earn While You Learn partnerships — particularly our flagship collaboration with UVA Health — represent the future of workforce and academic integration,” Keniston says. says. “These programs — both credit and non-credit — offer a tangible pathway for students to earn industry-recognized credentials, advance in high-demand careers, and complete degrees without incurring debt.”
