When I left the military in the early 2000s due to service-connected disabilities, I tried to rebuild my life as best as I could. I went back home to the Pacific Northwest and attended the University of Washington as an undergraduate, trying to partake of college life as best I could while addressing the physical and psychological trauma I endured as a result of my service. Fundamentally, this was a process I had to work alone — along with being a disabled veteran, I am also a first-generation college student as well as the child of immigrants. So it was a process that happened in fits and starts, and was far from direct.

Given what I had encountered, I felt I had to put down my childhood dream of becoming a physician, instead pursuing training as an engineer to improve science and technology policy in D.C.

It was a path I pursued for roughly two decades, until I left my last D.C.-area job in July 2023. The change was influenced by the death of two of my mentors: one of my undergraduate professors at the University of Washington and a professor I had at Cornell as a grad student. I decided finally to pursue what I feel is my utmost purpose in life — my childhood dream of becoming a doctor.

But now, because of new limits passed under the federal government’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” I may never be able to afford to go to med school. And I’m not alone.

The law, signed on Independence Day this year, imposes strict caps on federal student loans — particularly for graduate and professional........

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