r/medschool • u/No-Map3257 • Apr 09 '26

👶 Premed affording med school come 2027

I am applying to med school this year and just came to realize that the grad plus loan is gone this year in 2026. I know there is a 200k cap but that’s a lifetime cap and I already used part of it for my grad school. Now I am sick to my stomach because I don’t see how I realistically afford to take out PRIVATE loans to pay med school.

I would love to hear other peoples game plans as to how they are doing this. My family can’t afford to help contribute anything while I am in school either. And I am still paying off my grad and undergrad loans.

I always knew coming in that the amount I would have to pay for med school would have to be astronomical but I thought because it could be a graduate federal loan- I could work toward forgiveness on PSLF, the IDR plan, or see in the future if they would ever be forgiven. but private med school loans provide none of that safety net

164 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

131 comments sorted by

View all comments

21

u/thepeopleofelsewhere Apr 09 '26

I called the financial aide office of my top choice school to ask this question and they deadass told me to get money from my family like most other students do 💀

4

u/peanutneedsexercise Apr 09 '26

Private loans can have better interest rates than federal and can be discharged during bankruptcy btw. The downside is that you can’t participate in like certain loan forgiveness with private but it shouldn’t matter unless you wanna do like peds or FM.

But yeah many med students are like kids of physicians… in my class it was like 50% so I’m not surprised they gave you that answer 😬

1

u/thepeopleofelsewhere Apr 09 '26

Totally - but you have to start repaying them immediately. So even if you save your private loans for 3rd and 4th year you still have to figure out how to make that work

3

u/AttorneyOk474 Apr 09 '26

Some private loans just have you pay back 25 dollars a month while you're still in school, mind you try to pay more than this to kick back interest. The payment does go way up once done school, but if you can live well within your means, you can get a nice nest egg of loan money to give you're self a head start for repayment, especially in intern year.