Republicans’ Loan Plan Presents New Obstacles for Low-Income Students
21st June 2025
Politico, a Voice of the Crust.
A series of changes to long-running federal student loan programs tucked into the Republican tax plan has doctors panicked and struggling to find GOP allies.
The Senate education committee’s portion of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill includes a new cap on how much people can borrow for medical school and other professional programs that is well below the sticker price most students are facing. Lawmakers are also proposing to nix a class of federal loans graduate students use to cover housing and other non-tuition expenses.
For low-income and first-generation college students with aspirations of becoming physicians, these plans, if enacted, could squash their dreams, according to medical college leaders. As the full Senate irons out the bill and Trump rattles school finances with funding freezes, doctors’ groups are asking Congress to preserve the more generous loan options or risk a sharp drop in who’s studying medicine — a profession that’s already facing a shortage.
I don’t see in the Constitution where it’s the government’sz–or the taxpayers’– responsibility to pay for the dreams of low-income or first-generation college students wanting to go to med school. If they can’t pay, they can’t have; same as with buying a Bugatti. The reason med school is so expensive is that they jacked the prices up, knowing that the government (i.e. the taxpayers) foot the bill. Without that subsidy, the prices with either come down or they’ll be whistling for students. We are facing a shortage of doctors because (a) the price of med school is too high, and (b) the government and the medical profession put all sorts of road-blocks in the way of building more medical schools.