4. a. There is established within the Higher Education Student Assistance Authority the Nursing Faculty Loan Redemption Program. The purpose of the program is to address the current and projected critical shortage of nursing faculty in the State by providing an incentive for persons to enter graduate nursing education programs and for persons already trained as nurses to advance their training in the profession so as to ensure that sufficient numbers of nursing faculty are available to train nursing students, and the State's hospitals, nursing homes, veterans' facilities and home care services and community care programs will have sufficient, trained nursing staff in the future to provide quality health care services to the residents of this State.
The program shall provide loan redemption in exchange for full-time and part-time faculty employment at a school of nursing in the State for a five-year period.
b. In developing the program, the authority shall collaborate with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Jersey Nursing Initiative and such other entities as the authority deems appropriate.