AAMC Letter to Secretary
Riley Regarding Increased Unsubsidized Loan Limits
August 7, 1998
The Honorable Richard W. Riley
Secretary of Education
Room 6263
600 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20202
Dear Mr. Secretary:
In response to the shortfall in loan funds traditionally
available to medical students through the Health Education
Assistance Loan (HEAL) program, the Department of Education,
in Dear Colleague Letters GEN-96-14, GEN-97-4 and GEN-97-14,
increased the annual and aggregate loan limits on the Federal
Unsubsidized Stafford Loan on a temporary basis for students
in schools that had been using the HEAL program. Pending the
reauthorization of the Health Professions Partnerships Training
Act of 1998 (S. 1754), the Department extended the temporary
provisions for the 1997-98 and 1998-99 academic years. The
Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and our member
institutions are deeply grateful for your assistance to medical
students during the period in which the future of the HEAL
program was not certain.
Due to cost considerations the HEAL program will not be reauthorized
as part of S. 1754. In all likelihood, this signals the end
of the HEAL program. Therefore, the AAMC would like to explore
with the Department a mechanism that would continue the Department's
temporary provision on a permanent basis. The AAMC is aware
of the very important issues that face the Department in its
consideration of this request. A decision to increase permanently
the Federal Unsubsidized Stafford Loan borrowing limits has
implications for the federal budget, the Department's policies
for other graduate and professional disciplines, and the level
of debt of medical school graduates.
In making this request, the AAMC is asking that the eligibility
for the increased Unsubsidized Loan borrowing limits be extended
to all medical students, including the medical students in
more than twenty of our member schools not currently eligible
under the Department's temporary provisions. Past and present
loan repayment performance of medical school graduates is
demonstrative of the minimal risk the Department would assume
in rendering a decision to permanently increase Unsubsidized
Loan borrowing limits for all medical student borrowers.
Through a variety of programs on the national and local level,
the AAMC encourages responsible borrowing by medical students.
This is accomplished through extensive debt counseling programs
and services available to medical schools, medical students,
and medical residents to minimize the possibility of loan
default by our graduates.
The AAMC would like to work with you and your staff to explore
possible options available to all medical students following
the 1998-99 academic year. Please accept my personal thanks
for your support of medical student borrowers during this
time of uncertainty. The AAMC looks forward to working with
the Department to explore future possibilities for the increased
Unsubsidized Loan borrowing limits. Please have your staff
contact Scott Henderson (202-828-0526) if you have any questions
regarding this request.
Sincerely,
Jordan J. Cohen, M.D. President
cc: Jeffrey Baker
Vanessa Freeman
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