Tuition and Student Cost-of-Living Expenses
By Dr. David Edward Marcinko; MBA, CMP™
According to the New York Times, December 19, 2008, almost one-quarter of U.S. medical students now graduate from medical school with $200,000 or more in debt. And, according to New England Journal of Medicine [NEJM], this is an expense that limits entry to the profession.
Median Costs
The median cost of attending a year of medical school, including all fees, is now $62,243 at private schools and $44,390 for state residents at public schools. Most of the $2.5 billion in financial assistance available to medical students comes in the form of non-subsidized loans, while few top schools have the resources to discount tuition for students from lower-income families. The steep costs may discourage low-income students from going to medical school, and sway graduates toward higher-earning specialties like radiology, surgery, invasive cardiology and gastroenterology; and away from lower-paying ones like primary care; well-know for sparse compensation and long hours [thinker versus doer].
Assessment
By way of comparison, while at Temple University in the late 1970’s, my annual tuition and lodging was in the $5,500 – $8,500 range. I was a bachelor without a vehicle, who shared a single room above an antique store on Pine Street, and worked part-time at Pennsylvania Hospital. I graduated debt-free. This frugality enabled me to take prime, but low paying internship, residency and fellowship programs which proved an excellent long-term decision.
Conclusion
And so, your thoughts and comments on this Medical Executive-Post are appreciated. Is this debt burden only a tuition problem, or is the dismal economic future of medicine known to astute candidates? In-other-words, has the medical student marketplace already discounted future physician earnings – or – perhaps just suffering from “high-living?”
Related Information Sources:
Practice Management: http://www.springerpub.com/prod.aspx?prod_id=23759
Physician Financial Planning: http://www.jbpub.com/catalog/0763745790
Medical Risk Management: http://www.jbpub.com/catalog/9780763733421
Healthcare Organizations: www.HealthcareFinancials.com
Health Administration Terms: www.HealthDictionarySeries.com
Physician Advisors: www.CertifiedMedicalPlanner.com
Speaker: If you need a moderator or speaker for an upcoming event, Dr. David E. Marcinko; MBA – Publisher-in-Chief of the Executive-Post – is available for seminar or speaking engagements. Contact: MarcinkoAdvisors@msn.com or Bio: www.stpub.com/pubs/authors/MARCINKO.htm
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Filed under: "Doctors Only", Career Development, Financial Planning, Health Economics, Managed Care, Op-Editorials | Tagged: medical student debt
Dr. Marcinko,
As a new medical student, I just read this article, and could not agree more with it. Here is the intro:
“It’s not surprising that you didn’t realize what you were getting into with your student loan. You were just barely out of your teen years when you signed the paperwork. If you’re like most people, you probably had little understanding of what it means to incur debt and were lulled into a false sense of security with the knowledge that payments will be deferred for years to come. The language can throw you too. What’s the difference between a subsidized and an unsubsidized loan? What about federal v.s. private loans; and so on? This lack of understanding can make you the victim of predatory interest rates from private student loan providers. But walking away from your student loan isn’t the same thing as walking away from your home loans. You’d better be aware of the consequences before you decide not to pay”.
Link: http://www.mint.com/blog/finance-core/should-you-walk-away-from-your-student-loans/#more-3176
I think my financial advisor got it all wrong for me. So, I now urge all ME-P members to read the rest of this link and decide for yourself. Forget about conventional wisdom, and Good Luck!
Grace