WEST DES MOINES — A new option is available for doctors and dentists working required residencies or fellowships to help them ease student loan repayment during those stressful years. The Reset Refinance Loan® for Medical Residents is being offered by Iowa Student Loan®, a nonprofit student loan provider based in West Des Moines.
During residencies and fellowships, doctors and dentists typically work long hours and receive salaries significantly lower than they will realize in the future. According to a Medscape 2019 survey, the average resident annual salary ranges from $57,400 to $67,500 depending on the resident’s specialty. To relieve the burden of large student loan payments during this time of high stress and smaller paychecks, the Reset Refinance Loan for Medical Residents allows these professionals to make reduced monthly payments of $75 during their residency instead of requiring full principal and interest monthly payments.
“Medical residents face high student loan payments when their salaries can least support those payments,” said Steve McCullough, president and CEO of Iowa Student Loan. “Our refinancing loan lets them make lower payments, at a reduced interest rate.”
The average student loan debt for medical graduates, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics for the class of 2016, is $251,600. Without assistance or refinancing options, medical school graduates who have borrowed that average amount may be facing monthly principal and interest student loan bills of $1,500 or more.
With the Reset Refinance Loan for Medical Residents, borrowers can make $75 monthly payments for up to 66 months depending on the length of their residency or fellowship before full monthly payments are due. Like the Reset Refinance Loan for student and parent loan borrowers seeking to refinance to a better rate or term, the medical residency loan features fixed rates and allows borrowers to refinance up to $300,000. Applicants must meet specific underwriting criteria to qualify.
McCullough strongly encourages anyone carefully considering refinancing their federal student loans into a private loan like the Reset Refinance Loan for Medical Residents to compare the costs and benefits of federal and private student loans before refinancing federal loans into a private loan.
Information about the loan, including underwriting and credit criteria, as well as a pre-qualification option that does not impact interested applicants' credit is available online at www.IowaStudentLoan.org/MedRes.