Connecticut doctors worry changes to medical school loans could worsen physician shortage

HARTFORD, Conn. (WFSB) - If you’ve tried to make an appointment with a new doctor or specialist recently, you may have had to wait weeks or even months for an appointment. Some in the medical community worry changes to student loans could make those wait times even longer.

Part of the Big Beautiful Bill that passed in July was a change in how medical students can borrow money for graduate school. That change could make it difficult for some students to become a doctor.

UCONN medical student Jessica MacIntyre has dreamed about becoming a doctor since she was a kid.

“I think around the time I was 8, I started telling my mom that I really wanted to go into medicine. We don’t have any doctors in our family, so I’m the first one to go to college and go into medicine,” said MacIntyre.

Now a 4th-year med student, MacIntyre says her education has only been possible with the help of federal loans.

“I relied really heavily on the federal loan program. Including my undergrad, masters and medical school, I’m looking at about $400,000 in student loan debt right now,” said MacIntyre.

President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill will cap federal loans for professional degrees such as law or medicine to $50,000 a year and $200,000 for a lifetime starting in 2026. Medical school on average costs more than that. The Association of American Medical Colleges or AAMC reports the median 4-year cost of attendance for the class of 2025 is around $286,454 for a public school and more than $390,848 for a private school. MacIntyre will graduate before the new cap goes into place. If she had been limited to $200,000 in federal loans, she says she may not have been able to study medicine.

“I would be forced to look into private loans, and I’m not sure that I would be approved for those private loans, and when you’re looking at the cost of private loans, the interest can be three times the amount that federal loans are,” said MacIntyre. “That would significantly increase my costs, and I’m not sure I have the money to be able to afford that.”

Dr. Khuram Ghumman is president of the Connecticut State Medical Society. He worries these changes will result in fewer students studying medicine which means fewer doctors graduating. Before any of this federal legislation passed, the AAMC was already projecting a national physician shortage of up to 86,000 doctors by 2036.

“Unfortunately, that will have a downstream effect on our society because if you look at the numbers, we already have a physician shortage,” said Dr. Ghumman. “The current

projected shortage could be worsened, and now if you bring that number down to Connecticut, we already have seen a net negative impact.”

Dr Ghumann is hoping some type of public service loan forgiveness or different tuition models can be put in place to prevent that from happening. For now, he hopes students aren’t deterred from studying medicine.

Macintyre says for her, it’s all been worth it.

“It is absolutely worth it to me. I could not see myself doing anything else except medicine, and I’m so grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to be here, and I’m so humbled to be able to see patients on a day-to-day basis and make these wonderful connections and really feel like I’m making a difference in this world,” said Dr. Ghumman

Dr. Ghumann is part of Connecticut’s physician recruitment and retention working group. They are working to study the physician shortage in our state and will then make recommendations for the Connecticut legislature to continue.