The fee feels arbitrary. In many ways, it is. It penalizes the poor, the second-career dreamer, the single parent who has already sold their guitar to pay for anatomy textbooks. And that is not noble. That is a flaw in the system, a crack in the doorway of a profession that claims to welcome all healers. You are right to be angry about it. You are right to search for a way around it.

But the deeper search—the one you didn’t realize you were on—is not for a discount code. It is for a sign that your commitment will somehow cost you less than everything you have.

But here is the other truth, the one the application portal will never tell you: You don’t need a coupon code for those things either. Because you are not buying them. You are becoming them. The cost is not subtracted from your bank account; it is added to your marrow.