Assistance program
National Institutes of Health Extramural Loan Repayment Program
$507.3 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- National Institutes of Health, Health and Human Services, Department of
- Assistance
- Direct Payments for Specified Use
- CFDA number
- 93.280
- What it does
- To attract and retain health professionals to research careers by offering educational loan repayment for participants who agree by written contract to engage in qualified research in a qualifying nonprofit institution for a minimum of two years. There are six subcategories of research: contraception or infertility research, pediatric research, minority health disparities research, clinical research, clinical research for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, and research in emerging areas critical to human health.
- Who benefits
- Health professionals who are interested in pursuing research careers and who have unpaid educational loans will benefit from this program.
- Who applies
- (1) A U.S. citizen, U.S. national, or permanent resident of the United States; (2) Have a Ph.D., M.D., D.O., D.D.S., D.M.D., D.P.M., Pharm.D., D.C., N.D., O.D. or equivalent doctoral degree from an accredited institution; (3) Have total qualifying educational loan debt equal to or in excess of 20 percent of their institutional base salary on the date of program eligibility (the effective date that a loan repayment contract has been executed by the NIH Director or designee); (4) Conduct qualifying research supported by a domestic nonprofit foundation, nonprofit professional association, or other nonprofit institution, or a U.S. or other government agency (State or local); (5) Engage in qualified research for at least 50 percent of their time, i.e., not less than 20 hours per week based on a 40 hour week. (6) Agree to conduct research for which funding is not prohibited by Federal law, regulation, or HHS/NIH policy, and in accordance with applicable Federal, State and local law (e.g., applicable human subject protection regulations); and (8) Sign and submit to the NIH Director, at the time of application submission, a contract agreeing to engage in qualified research in a qualifying institution for a minimum of 2 years. Full-time employees of Federal Government agencies are ineligible to apply for Extramural LRP benefits. Part-time Federal employees who engage in qualifying research as part of their nonfederal duties for at least 20 hours per week based on a 40 hour week, and who are not compensated as a Federal employee for their research, are eligible to apply for loan repayment if they meet all other eligibility requirements.
- Authorized by
- 21st Century Cures Act
- Program site
- http://www.lrp.nih.gov ↗
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Recipients
This program's money is paid out as non-itemized direct payments — USAspending records it under a single aggregate, so individual recipients aren't listed. The dollars and agencies above are complete; the recipient roster isn't part of the public record for programs like this.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments