Smarter Student Loan Strategies for Healthcare Professionals | By Louis Perraut, CFP®

Healthcare staff dedicate their time, energy, and care to their patients - often while carrying significant student loan balances. Between medical school, nursing programs, and graduate degrees, it’s common to feel like repayment will last forever.
The good news? There are proven strategies, and some important changes in federal law that every healthcare worker should know about.

Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) - Still the Gold Standard

If you work full-time at a nonprofit hospital or health system, you likely qualify for PSLF. That means after 10 years of payments, the rest of your federal loans can be forgiven. Make sure you certify with your employer every year.

Pay close attention to when you need to recertify your income. If you’re on the PSLF path, the goal should be to pay as little as possible until forgiveness.

What’s new: The new Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) launching in 2026 will count toward PSLF, but it may require slightly higher minimum payments than today’s SAVE plan. If you’re already on an income-driven repayment plan, you can likely stay there — but you’ll want to review your options as 2026 approaches.

Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) Options Expanding

For those not pursuing PSLF, income-driven repayment plans like IDR remain a good way to manage cash flow. Recent changes also made it easier for Parent PLUS borrowers (through consolidation) to access IDR, opening doors for families who previously had limited choices.

If you’re working for a for-profit hospital or group, you’ll generally want to make sure your payments are at least covering the interest so your loans don’t continue to grow. Balancing investing, saving for retirement, and paying off debt is important—and a financial plan can help coordinate those priorities.

Other smart strategies include:

• Employer repayment benefits: Check if your employer offers loan repayment assistance.
• Debt snowball or avalanche method: Tackle one loan at a time – make extra payments to pay off the lowest balance loan first or the loan with the highest interest rate.  Once that debt is paid off, pay that same amount (minimum plus the extra) towards the next loan
• Biweekly payments: Paying every two weeks instead of monthly helps reduce interest and shorten your payoff timeline.

Borrowing Limits Are Changing in 2026

Graduate and Parent PLUS loans will soon have caps on how much can be borrowed. This mainly affects those considering additional degrees (nurse practitioners, physicians, therapists, etc.) or parents planning to borrow for children. If further education is in your future, it’s important to plan ahead.

What You Should Do Now

• If you’re on PSLF: Keep certifying your hospital employment every year. Stay the course.
• If you’re early in your career: Use IDR to keep payments manageable while your income grows.
• If you’re a Parent PLUS borrower: Ask about consolidation options to access better repayment plans.
• If you’re planning grad school after 2026: Know that federal borrowing limits will be lower.

Bottom Line

The rules are shifting, but the strategy remains simple:

• Use PSLF if eligible.
• Keep payments as low as possible on the right plan (unless your goal is to aggressively pay them off).
• Coordinate loan repayment with your retirement and family goals.
• Consider refinancing or consolidating loans—but only after weighing the trade-offs, especially if PSLF or federal protections are an option.

We help healthcare staff sort through these rules and build repayment strategies that save money and reduce stress.
Please reach out to start a conversation.