As of September 1, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) began accepting new applications for five Loan Repayment Programs (LRPs). According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the average loan debt of medical school graduates in the class of 2008 was $154,607. The LRPs offer as much as $35,000 a year to repay qualified educational debt for health professionals who are pursuing careers in clinical, pediatric, contraception and infertility, or health disparities research. The programs also provide coverage for Federal and state tax liabilities.

Please note: LRP awards are not research grants and are not awarded to the institution. Rather they are loan repayments made directly to the individual.

On average, nearly 40 percent of all new LRP applications are funded, and the awards are renewable. Since the programs’ inception, NIH has made approximately 7,500 awards that total more than $347 million in loan repayment funds. Initial evaluation has shown that participants in this program stay in research careers longer, apply for and receive more research grants, and become independent investigators more frequently than their peers who do not receive LRP funding.

Applicants must have a doctoral-level degree, devote 50% or more of their time to nonprofit- or government-funded research, and have educational debt equaling at least 20% of their institutional base salary. Applicants must be US citizens, permanent residents, or US nationals. The five programs offering loan repayment are the Clinical Research LRP, Pediatric Research LRP, Contraception and Infertility Research LRP, Clinical Research for Individuals from Disadvantaged Backgrounds LRP, and Health Disparities Research LRP.

All applications for 2010 awards must be submitted electronically by December 1, 2009. For details and online application information, visit http://www.lrp.nih.gov. The LRP Information Center staff is available to answer questions Monday through Friday, 9AM to 5PM, call 866-849-4047 or email lrp@nih.gov. Visit the web site at Visit www.lrp.nih.gov for more details and to apply.

MUSC investigators who have experience with the Loan Repayment Programs, either as successful awardees or as peer reviewers, have offered to provide advice to new applicants. For information in this regard, please contact Peggy Schachte at schachte@musc.edu or 792-0868.

Source: NOT-OD-09-107 http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-09-107.html, July 18, 2009; NIH LRP website, http://www.lrp.nih.gov/; NIH Extramural Nexus, September 2009