AIDS Research Loan Repayment Program

Text Size:

Print:

The United States national congress enacted the public law directing the NIH or the National Institutes of Health to introduce the AIDS Research Loan Repayment Program. The reason for the introduction of this education loan repayment program was to increase the participation of the investigators to conduct research on AIDS at the NIH by providing access to government loans to begin their research. These government loans are given to interested healthcare professionals to actively take part in this research.

If the participant qualifies for this education loan program then for the initial stage, which is a minimum of 2 years, the lender of that participant is directly paid a sum of $20,000 a year from the AIDS Research Loan Repayment Program. However, the loan repayment is divided into two parts namely the fund availability and the qualifying debt proportion of the participant of the research program, which is based on the stipend or the basic pay of the NIH. This loan repayment to the participants’ lenders is treated as income for the participants and this directly increases their federal tax liability. To counter this problem the loan repayment program makes a payment of 39% of the total debt repayment directly to the IRS or the Internal Revenue Service account of the participant. This is a unique government loan program because it makes additional tax reimbursements to the research program participants who have significant rise in local or state tax liability. Additional benefits are provided to the participants along with their NIH annual stipend or basic pay.

The applicants of the AIDS Research Loan Repayment Program become eligible for this program once the AIDS Research Loan Repayment Advisory Committee approves their assignment and executes their contract.

Apart from these stipulations, there are other criteria, such as:

● The applicant must be a citizen or a permanent US resident.
● The applicant must be qualified and should posses any of the following degrees, PhD, MD, DO, DMD, DDS and DVM.
● The applicant must have qualified educational debt that is more than 20% of the NIH stipend or basic pay on the program eligibility date.
● People who are not employees of NIH such as visiting fellows, guest researchers, and NRSA are not eligible for the program.
● The applicant will only be eligible for the LRP program if he is appointed under the permanent or temporary employment mechanism, so that his employment lasts for 2 years minimum.