All About Loans

The FIRST (Financial Information, Resources, Services, and Tools) program can help you make a smooth, successful, and informed transition to medical school. This is probably one of the biggest financial and personal investments of your life. Utilize the resources available to make wise and knowledgeable decisions about your future.

Answer these questions to reveal if refinancing would benefit your debt situation.

If you have good credit, you may be able to refinance your existing federal student loans into a private loan. Before doing that, it’s important to understand the full impact of making this permanent change to your loans.

If you have federal student loan debt, the good news is you get to choose how to pay it back, and it takes only two simple steps to pick the best plan for you.

If you borrowed federal student loans, loan repayment may be just around the corner — either after your 6-month grace period is over or after residency. Fortunately, you have options, so select the repayment plan that works best for you and meets your financial goals.

Federal student loan payments are postponed during periods of grace, deferment, and/or forbearance.

Direct Loans are federal education loans with fixed interest rates and flexible repayment terms. Borrowers should consider maximizing Direct Loan options before borrowing other loans with higher interest rates, fees and/or possibly more stringent terms and conditions. Direct Loans are available to student borrowers through the federal government.

Managing federal student loan payments during residency is important because missing payments can lead to financial problems like delinquency and default.

The decision to consolidate should be made carefully. Consolidation is not required but may be necessary in some instances.

Managing your debt effectively and repaying your medical school loans wisely is easier when you keep good records. It is important to know how much you owe, the terms and conditions of each loan type, and what agencies are servicing your loans. You need to know what documents to save, where to find them when you need them, and who you may need to contact if you have a question or concern.

Both federal and private loans are viable options for financing an education, but it is important for the funding source to be one that best complements the student’s expected career path and financial goals. Medical students face a unique situation with long enrollment periods followed by additional years of post-graduation training. Careful consideration should be given when choosing financing options.

Occasionally unforeseen emergencies occur that can affect your finances and your eligibility for financial aid. Under certain circumstances, financial aid administrators have the authority to adjust your financial aid eligibility. If you are experiencing a financial crisis, talk with your financial aid officer to see what options may be available.

Some college graduates consider a postbaccalaureate premedical program or coursework to be a stronger, more qualified medical school applicant. When researching these programs, make sure to consider any financial implications that may have an impact on your present and future situation.

Though the costs associated with applying for a residency position will be a minor portion of the total cost of your medical education, they can still add up. Because application fees are not always covered by student loans, it is important to develop a plan early on for how you will manage these expenses.

Fourth-year medical students may encounter expenses not included in the standard student budget and may find it necessary to borrow additional funds through a residency and relocation loan. If you are considering a residency and relocation loan to cover some of your additional expenses associated with the residency match (traveling for interviews, related meals, lodging) or relocation costs, it’s important to understand how these private loans differ from federal loans.

Do you know how much you owe in federal student loans? Do you know who your loan servicer is and where to send your loan payments? Do you know the status of your loan(s)? Do you know when your first payment is due? Where can you find the answers to these questions? Login to your Federal Student Aid account.

The biggest cost of the residency process will likely be the cost of interviewing. While these may be a minor part of the total cost of a medical education, it is still important to develop a strategy for managing these costs — before they are incurred.

Managing federal student loan payments during residency may be challenging, but income-driven repayment plans offer more manageable payment amounts that could also lead to forgiveness through the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program.

The MedLoans™ Organizer and Calculator tool was developed to assist medical students and residents with managing their education debt. The MLOC tool provides a secure location to organize and track student loans while also displaying possible repayment plans and costs based on the borrower’s student loan debt.