Nearly half of physicians who graduated with MDs in 2025 carry debt that surpasses the $200,000 cap on medical student loans proposed by the U.S. Department of Education, according to an analysis co-authored by a former CDC director.
The proposed cap is part of the negotiated rulemaking process to implement the student loan provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) Act of 2025 signed by President Donald Trump. In an editorial published on April 7 in Annals of Internal Medicine, Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH, who served as director of the CDC from 2021 to 2023, and Nicole C. McCann, BA,