DENVER (KUSA) – A cap on federal student loans included in the new tax and spending bill passed by Congress has some concerned about what that would mean for students looking to go to medical school.
“Oh, it’s heartbreaking. This is the future of who’s going to be taking care of our country,” Dr. Kim Warner, president of the Colorado Medical Society, said.
Becoming a doctor isn’t getting any easier.
“If you’re going to pursue medicine today, unless you are very, very wealthy, you are going to have some student loan debt,” Joe Dantin said.
Dantin is a second-year medical student at Rocky Vista University, an education that has required student loans.
“Absolutely, absolutely. I had no choice in the matter. Utilizing federal student loans was truly the only way that I was able to pursue this degree,” he said.
President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” included caps on the amount of federal student loans a student can borrow.
For professional programs like medical schools, students are limited to borrowing $50,000 a year, with a total limit of $200,000.
That may seem like a lot, but Warner said it doesn’t even cover the debt most medical students graduate with.
“Medical school is already the most expensive type of secondary education in the nation. Seventy percent of medical students graduate with an average educational debt of about $212,000,” she said.
That’s putting resident physicians as well as current and future medical students in an uncertain spot.
“Particularly those who have already planned that this is how they’re going to borrow their money, how much they’re going to borrow, and how they’re going to sustain that educational journey. And now it’s all up in arms,” Warner said. “And I bet a lot of people are going to have to withdraw from medical school.”
Warner is worried that unless something changes, this will stop qualified students from becoming doctors.
“It’s heartbreaking. It’s knowing that qualified, dedicated, driven students in the very near future will not have the opportunity to go to med school. It’s a tough thing to swallow for those of us who made this decision,” Dantin said.
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