Outcomes for NIH Loan Repayment Program Awardees: A Preliminary Look

Since 1988, the NIH Loan Repayment Programs (LRPs) have been successful in recruiting and retaining early stage investigators into promising biomedical and behavioral research careers. As I have written about before, one of the most significant benefits of these programs is that NIH can repay up to $35,000 in educational loans per year for these talented professionals, which helps alleviate an often cited barrier to entering the biomedical research workforce. Since their inception, NIH LRPs have funded more than 25,000 new and renewal awards totaling more than $950 million (see more data on the LRP Dashboard). Repaying educational debt is one thing, but what other benefits might these programs provide? To answer this question, my colleagues within the NIH Office of Extramural Research’s Division of Loan Repayment compared individuals that applied for and received an LRP with those who applied but did not receive an LRP award between fiscal years (FYs) 2003-2009. Their history of productivity was followed through FY 2017.  More specifically, we assessed pulled information on grant submissions, awards, and publications in a sample that was equalized to control for baseline differences (n=3,053 applications; funded n=1,095, unfunded n=1,958). Results indicated that individuals who received an LRP award demonstrated consistently higher levels of what we termed “persistence in research” (Figure 1). This composite measure includes submitting grant or fellowship app...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - Category: Research Authors: Tags: blog Open Mike LRP Source Type: funding