Food, the bills or the loan payment? For many early-career psychologists, covering all the expenses is a high-wire juggling act, and taking on new ones like buying a house or starting a family can seem prohibitive.

To help ease their burden, APA Past-president Gerald P. Koocher, PhD, formed the Psychology Career Support Initiative in 2006. The initiative members, with input from the Rural Health and the Early Career Psychologists Committees, found that the biggest financial burden most early-careerpsychologists face is student loan debt.

What’s more, it can be hard to find information about loan-repayment and assistance programs that can help early-career psychologists pay down their debt, notes Tom DeMaio, PhD, chair of the Psychology Career Support Initiative. To consolidate the information about programs in one easily accessible place, the initiative established a “Funding from A to Z” section on the APA Web site.

Some of the highlighted loan programs include:

The National Health Service Corps Loan Repayment Program:

• Repays up to $50,000 in loans for professionals who agree to work at least two years in an underserved community.

• Offers additional money for working additional years.

• Serves communities nationwide.

• Offers matching funds to states to establish additional loan programs.

The National Institutes of Health Loan Repayment Programs:

• Repays up to $35,000 of loans per year for researchers who make a two- to three-year commitment in certain research fields.

• Includes the research areas of clinical, pediatric, health disparity, or contraception and infertility.

• Stipulates that research must be funded by a domestic nonprofit or U.S. government (federal, state or local) entity.

• Makes payments to the Internal Revenue Service at the rate of 39 percent of each loan repayment to cover loan-related increased federal taxes.

The National Institutes of Health Clinical Research Loan Repayment Program for Individuals from Disadvantaged Backgrounds:

• Repays up to $35,000 of loans per year for researchers who make a two-year commitment to clinical research.

• Stipulates that research must be funded by a domestic nonprofit or U.S. government (federal, state or local) entity.

• Makes payments to the Internal Revenue Service at the rate of 39 percent of each loan repayment to cover loan-related increased federal taxes.

Visit the Psychology Career Support Initiative’s list of loan-repayment resources at www.apa.org/ppo/funding/atoz.html.