Major Changes to Student Loan Program

There already are loan companies that specialize in providing loans to med students.

Cal NorthState has refused to apply for the federal loan program for all of the 14 years of its medical program and even longer than that (18 years) for its pharmacy program. All Cal Northstate’s med and pharm students either have their families pay cash for education or they/their families take out private educational loans. (Or the families mortgage their homes, take out home equity loans, pool resources from multiple family members, borrow from overseas lenders, etc.)

New medical schools that have not yet graduated a class or/and have not achieved provisional accreditation with the LCME or COCA are not eligible to join the federal student loan program. Students at new med schools are forced to seek out private lenders to pay for school until their program meets the qualification for applying to the federal student loan program.

So these lenders already exist, but their borrower pool is much smaller than it will starting 2026 when the new federal caps go into effect.

You can look around and see what is currently available for med students and assume the lending landscape isn’t change a huge amount in a year.