Primary Care loan Program worth ?

[Gill_97]

Hi,
I am reaching out to those in the primary care or internal medicine field. I am currently an M1 student and my school is offering students a primary card loan thru DHHS, which basically will convert all the federal loan into a PCL loan and no interest is accrued until residency. The only condition is commitment to primary care field. The idea that the interest will not be accrued until residency is tempting, however I am asking those who have take this loan or , have some information about the future repercussions of this commitment, please share.
On issue I can think of is that if i decide to go for a residency other than primary care, then I have to pay penalty in terms of higher interest rate (7%) as opposed to 5%. Other than that I don't see any issue with this even if i change my mind. I did some calculations and it seems over the next 6 years (including school and residency), it should save me over 80k in interest alone. And if i decide to go for another residency, I can payoff this loan with some private loans that might be cheaper. Lastly, do students get other similar loans or loan forgiveness programs during the M3 or M4 school year which are better than accepting it now ?
Thought or feedback please ?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[chessknt]

Assuming you are going in to M1 this is a terrible idea since you have no idea what medicine is or what you want to do. The premise of this loan idea is great but in real life the setup makes no sense, it would be like asking a middle schooler if they want a loan to become an astronaut which sounds cool at the time but when you realize all the spinning and math and ****ting in to bags involved becomes much less fun.

If you end up doing primary care there are plenty of existing loan repayment incentives that will give you $x k/year in loan forgiveness that will vastly eclipse your saved interest.

edit-Rereading your post I actually have no idea what you are talking about. The normal PC loan program (which I described above and comes with an actual service commitment) is different from whatever you are describing, have a link?

 

[aafisahar]

No interest doing med school may sound like a lot, but compared to specialist vs pcp income, it's pennies. Specialists can earn many millions more over their lifetime than a PCP. A few thousand dollars in interest can't compare.

Now if you wanted to do primary care from the getgo, this is just icing on the cake.

 

[IMGASMD]

Hi,
I am reaching out to those in the primary care or internal medicine field. I am currently an M1 student and my school is offering students a primary card loan thru DHHS, which basically will convert all the federal loan into a PCL loan and no interest is accrued until residency. The only condition is commitment to primary care field. The idea that the interest will not be accrued until residency is tempting, however I am asking those who have take this loan or , have some information about the future repercussions of this commitment, please share.
On issue I can think of is that if i decide to go for a residency other than primary care, then I have to pay penalty in terms of higher interest rate (7%) as opposed to 5%. Other than that I don't see any issue with this even if i change my mind. I did some calculations and it seems over the next 6 years (including school and residency), it should save me over 80k in interest alone. And if i decide to go for another residency, I can payoff this loan with some private loans that might be cheaper. Lastly, do students get other similar loans or loan forgiveness programs during the M3 or M4 school year which are better than accepting it now ?
Thought or feedback please ?

Know three people who did one of those 7 year program for free if they choose to become primary care.

None of them choose primary care, have to pay back all their tuition. (Not sure with or without interest).

Just tell me the earning potential as a specialist is so much higher, even 7 years of tutoring isn’t worth it to them.

 

[Gill_97]

But, even with change of mind, don't you think it still makes sense to go for it and save on the accrued interest. If you change mind, worst case would be convert PCL to another loan (provided that is less than 7%) and continue with your preferred field ? And if you end up continuing with primary care then great!

 

[chessknt]

But, even with change of mind, don't you think it still makes sense to go for it and save on the accrued interest. If you change mind, worst case would be convert PCL to another loan (provided that is less than 7%) and continue with your preferred field ? And if you end up continuing with primary care then great!

You need to go over the loan terms with a lawyer or cpa since nobody here knows for sure. I imagine the federal government of the United States figured a way to protect themselves from being routinely defrauded and might not allow prepayment/payoff early in order to recoup their lost interest in the event of a service default. You are assuming of you show up with a bunch of money and ask to pay off the loan before you eat the interest they’ll say that’s ok but that is not guaranteed to be allowed it has to be written in to the loan terms. Only way to know for sure is to read the promissory note.