Grants announced this week as part of a 10-year initiative to address the state’s nursing shortage are attacking the problem on many fronts and likely will be of great benefit to Kansas residents.

Rather than focus on a single nursing school or training program, the Kansas Board of Regents spread $3.4 million across 20 state universities, community colleges and vocational technical schools. Some of the money went for facilities, but providing money to hire faculty members to support increased enrollment in nursing programs was a major focus.

Pittsburg State University got the largest grant: $502,000 to add four full-time and two part-time nursing faculty members, create a patient simulation and learning resource center and fund four nurse educator scholarships. Kansas University Medical Center, which is responsible for training many of the teachers in other nursing programs received about $126,000 to fund two new faculty positions and six new nurse educator scholarships.

Fort Hays State, Emporia State and Wichita State also got funding for faculty and scholarships, as did Washburn University.

But right at half of the grant money, about $1.62 million, went to nursing programs at 13 community colleges scattered all across the state: Barton County, Butler County, Cloud County, Pratt and Hutchinson in the central part of the state; Colby, Dodge City and Garden City in western Kansas; Johnson County and Kansas City, Kan., in the northeast; and Neosho County and Fort Scott in the southeast. Grants also went to North Central Kansas Technical College in Hays and Manhattan Area Technical College.

The distribution of the grants is a recognition of the important role community colleges can play in training nurses. Not only do they bring nursing programs closer geographically to students in different parts of the state, those students probably are more likely to remain in those areas to work after they graduate.

The state’s universities, and particularly the KU Medical Center, have an important role to play in providing faculty and support for these nursing programs. Community colleges also play an important role in training nurses, especially for underserved areas. It’s good that in its mission to coordinate and maximize the state’s higher education resources, the Board of Regents is taking advantage of what community colleges have to offer.