Every so often, I catch myself wondering, what if I had applied to medical school just two years later? As another class of medical students matriculates, that question has become harder to ignore. On July 1, changes made to federal student loan programs under the One Big Beautiful Bill went into effect.

These changes cap how much graduate students can borrow and eliminate the current Graduate PLUS loan structure that has allowed many medical students to cover the full cost of attendance. I am a current medical student and was fortunate to be grandfathered into the existing federal Graduate PLUS loan program. Because I enrolled before recent changes, I will be able to complete my medical education with access to the financing that made it possible for me to attend in the first place.

Without Graduate PLUS loans, I simply could not have afforded medical school. Like many students, I come from a family that believed in my dream of becoming a physician but could not finance four years of tuition and living expenses that often total hundreds of thousands of dollars. Medical school is unlike nearly every other graduate program.

The demands of coursework and clinical training leave little opportunity for meaningful outside employment, and private loans often require strong credit histories, co-signers, or financial resources that many applicants do not have. Graduate PLUS loans allowed me to pursue medicine because of my work ethic and commitment to serving others, not because of my family’s financial circumstances. My story is far from unique.

Many of my classmates are here for the same reason. Some are first-generation college students. Others come from middle-income families that earn too much to qualify for significant financial aid but nowhere near enough to pay for medical school out of pocket.

We all arrived through different paths, but we share one reality: Federal student loans made medical school possible. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), approximately 70% of graduating medical students leave school with educational debt, with a median debt of about $215,000 among borrowers. For most future physicians, borrowing is not the exception.

It is the norm. I plan to pursue primary care because I believe every patient deserves access to continuous, preventive, and compassionate health care. America already faces a growing physician shortage.

The AAMC projects the nation could face a shortage of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036. Nearly 1 in 5 Americans live in a rural community, but only 1 in 10 physicians practice there, according to the National Rural Health Association. Across the country, patients already wait months for appointments, travel hours to see specialists, or struggle to find a primary care physician accepting new patients.

At the moment we need more physicians, we are considering policies that could make becoming one less attainable. Supporters of graduate loan caps argue that they reduce federal spending and encourage schools to control tuition. These are reasonable goals.

Medical education is expensive, and the cost structure deserves scrutiny. But limiting access to financing without reducing the cost of attendance does not make medical school more affordable.