WATCH: Are these the last medical students in Iowa who aren’t rich?

Doctors make a lot of money, right? They can—in some specialties. Still, one Iowa medical student says people don’t understand the costs that get them there.

“People picture that once you graduate medical school, you go out and get a Ferrari, and you zip over to the hospital, you make a million dollars for one surgery, and then you go home after four hours, and that is not at all how it is.”

Jordan Appel came from central Wisconsin and is a fourth year medical student at Des Moines University.

He’s been taking out about $75,000-85,000 in federal loans each year to pay for medical school tuition and living expenses. He’ll have to pay those loans back one day, but he couldn’t afford his education without them.

Students who start medical school next year won’t have the same options.
A provision in President Trump’s “big beautiful bill” ends one grad school loan program, and caps federal student loans at $200,000 total for medical school and law school.

Right now, the average cost of attending medical school is between $250,000 and $363,000 in the US.

OB-GYNs in Iowa say the changes will especially deter future medical students from going into high-need specialities like obstetrics.

✏️: Salina Heller