Health Professions Student Loan Program

[voyeurofthemind]

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Does anyone know the story behind why physicians, dentists, and even veterinarians are given access to this program but psychologists are not? The option to take out a loan with a 5% interest rate versus 6.8% would be thousands over the course of a loan. It seems to me that someone failed to advocate or get parity for psychologists again. Obviously I can understand excluding experimental, social psychologists etc. but really, not including clinical psychology?

 

[JeyRo]

Does anyone know the story behind why physicians, dentists, and even veterinarians are given access to this program but psychologists are not? The option to take out a loan with a 5% interest rate versus 6.8% would be thousands over the course of a loan. It seems to me that someone failed to advocate or get parity for psychologists again. Obviously I can understand excluding experimental, social psychologists etc. but really, not including clinical psychology?

It's also interesting that the SLRP program at the VA (and presumably, parallel programs at other federal departments) conveniently seems to fail to include psychologists (psychologists technically are eligible for SLRP funds, but have never received them, at least at the very large VA system I work at - details on the program are here http://www.nynj.va.gov/docs/slrpsummary.pdf).

The explanation I received for this (I've been an employee at the VA for the past 5+ years) is that psychology positions are not hard (at all) to fill at the VA and the SLRP funds are intended as a retention incentive for hard-to-fill positions. My guess is the same logic is at work with the Health Professions Student Loan Program.

It's nearly impossible, ultimately, to escape the laws of supply and demand.