<p>
</p>
<p>UCLA requires online debt management tests before disbursing loans. One of them made sure the amount of time it would take to pay back the loan was clear.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>UCLA requires online debt management tests before disbursing loans. One of them made sure the amount of time it would take to pay back the loan was clear.</p>
<p>I have discovered with my students that it is more important WHAT you major in than WHERE you go to school. Common sense dictates that you don’t borrow $100,000 to become something which is going to pay you $35,000 per year, or worse still, qualify you for nothing other than graduate school and MORE student loans. suzanne</p>
<p>
In support of Enginox’s point -
But the students aren’t facing hundreds of thousands in loans to start with - they’re facing the cost of whatever major they end up completing and that major may change a time or two. Enginox’s example of how it works in engineering is a very good one. At the top engineering schools a cut is made to accept only the HS applicants with very high level stats including in math/science. This cut will often require higher stats than what’s required for most of the non-engineering majors at the same school (UCLA and UCSD are like this for example). Once in the major many of the early classes function as ‘weeder classes’ such that those who decide it’s not for them, or who don’t succeed in the courses, drop the major and usually move out of engineering to another major. In addition, another difference between many of the engineering majors and some of the humanities majors is that the engineering majors are required to have more credits and take more courses in their major to graduate. Those who can manage to make it through the entire program are qualified.</p>
<p>I can see this technique working for med and law school as well and I believe it’s already done in a number of other countries including the UK. There’s no reason that, like engineering, these med and law tracks couldn’t also require more courses within the major (as opposed to some humanities majors) and also have a high bar of who can actually make it through to graduating with the degree - probably the equivalent of about a 6 or 7 year degree (maybe 6 for law, 7 for med) instead of what’s generally required now.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t mind that as long as there was still an option to go to conventional law school. By the UK system I am not sure if I would have even been passed to high school grade levels, but once my parents weren’t around anymore to sabotage me I flourished and have been doing pretty well at a top 20 university. I can’t really agree with something that would screw me personally out of my career goals. And then pretty much none of the people who have to go to community college for whatever reason would have the opportunity to pursue medicine or law, and at the CC I attended those were two of the most popular goals.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I see what you are saying. This could be applied more easily for law than medicine. I would not want an immature 18 year old learning how to perform life threatening surgeries on people. And as much as I have respect for Engineers, I would not compare four years of Engineering to almost 10 years of Med school (outside of undergrad). Law school? Maybe. Med school? Definitely not.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Pfft…</p>
<p>If I got a nickel for everytime I heard someone claim to be Pre-Med or Pre-Law, I would be richer than Bill Gates. Most of the people are not cut out to be Lawyers or Doctors. Even I considered law, but I was smart enough to know that law is oversaturated and everyone is in it for big bucks and not for innocent intentions.</p>
<p>I am currently attending a community college for the summer. Many are pre-Med students, some are more serious than others. You have to WANT to be a Doctor to get through Med school, not just the money and the prestige. And at 18, most Americans are not mature enough to make that commitment, and many high schools ill prepare students for basic college, let alone something as intensive as Med School.</p>
<p>
I don’t see anything wrong with them starting to learn how at 18 or 16 or 14 (learning - not practicing on living people) but of course, the person generally wouldn’t be learning the more advanced material until they’re ready for it - likely several years after starting. The same is true with engineering - the students usually are learning the more general and foundational material in the first couple of years and the more advanced material after that. There wouldn’t be any shortcuts in the actual ‘technical material’ the lawyer and doctor need to do their jobs. The savings would be the time spent to take the specialized courses to get the UG degree - history, poliSci, ancient civilizations, etc. which although maybe ‘nice to know’, aren’t really directly required for the specialized law/med degree. Of course they’d still take GEs from different disciplines, as engineers generally do, to make them more well-rounded, but time and money could be saved.</p>
<p>This digresses somewhat from the context of the article which is more about fiscal knowledge and responsibility but it’s an interesting topic which if implemented, could shave down some of the spiraling education costs for these specialties.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>An immature 18 year old would not be learning how to perform life threatening surgeries on people anyways. Extrapolation from engineering schools would suggest that an 18 year old would probably be learning basic 2nd year material. Even if new medical students were allowed to operate on human bodies, those bodies would most likely be cadavers.</p>
<p>On your next point, the professional training of engineers does not end after undergraduate; it seems the real training for engineers begins when the engineers obtain their first industry job. Critical systems that must meet the highest standards for general public use (bridges, electrical wiring, etc.) are generally designed by engineers with significant experience and a professional license.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yeah, but I’m talking PURE schooling, not work experience. Med school takes twice a long as Engineering (without the undergraduate level) because it is far more complex and the stakes are pretty high. Med school is expensive. Even if someone were to skip undergrad, he/she would still rack on a ton of debt because of the nature of med school (clinicals, residency, classes, materials, etc), and most 18 year olds aren’t ready to get into some serious debt. Maybe in their early/mid twenties, but fresh out of high school? No. </p>
<p>And many of the people who end up starting pre med don’t go onto becoming doctors. Having a lot of people drop would just waste alot of time and money. I’d rather have them have a four year bridge than to go into Med school, hate it, and then drop out.</p>
<p>Sorry, but it seems you hold some misconceptions. Engineering work is just as complex, if not more, than medical work. Building a bridge is just as complex as doing open heart surgery. The residency requirement is one of the many reasons why medical school is so “long”; residency is nothing more than cheap labor for medical institutions.</p>
<p>Like previously mentioned, medical school can utilize the “weeding out” system used by engineering schools to get rid of the “riffraff”; most of the weeding out would probably occur within the initial two years and the likelihood of students accumulating a huge amount of debt is minimal.</p>
<p>“I’d rather have them have a four year bridge than to go into Med school, hate it, and then drop out.” </p>
<p>The problem with this logic is that the student may have already accumulated significant debt after undergraduate. It is still possible for a newly-minted Bachelor’s holder to apply to med school, hate it, and then drop; in the previous case, that young Bachelor’s holder is still on the hook for the undergrad debt. On the other hand, a person directly applying to med school fresh out of HS, will not be able to accumulate more than $250,000 in debt if the weed out takes place within 2 years.</p>
<p>In any case, the problem is people failing to read the contracts they sign. Emotion overrules reason.</p>
<p>I like how people just say off-hand, “Go be a plastic surgeon.” That doesn’t take incredible artistic skills or anything…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually there’s only 7 billion people on Earth right now… and Bill Gates is a multi-billionaire so no… you wouldn’t be that rich. I think anybody can be a doctor or a lawyer, it just takes time and of course money. There’s certainly a number of non-traditional pathways one can take to medical school. I don’t know about law but for medicine all it really takes is an iron will really… Humans are a wonderfully adaptive and dynamic species. But you’re right… people’s minds are too dynamic and career paths do often change.</p>
<p>Lenders should not give out loans to people who lack the ability to pay back. But they do it anyway to enrich themselves and put home owners, doctors and the entire economy in trouble. Sure, we individuals should exercise caution, but how many of us resisted lenders in the recent past? You cannot blame the doctor from Ohio that much.</p>
<p>The doc mentioned in the article graduated in 2003 owing 250k in loans. 7 years later a collection fee of 50k was added to the accrued principal and interest bringing the total to 550k. So the amount owed doubled in 7 years, meaning the amount grew at about 10%. Sound like she made NO payments on her loans over that time. That sounds like financial malfeasance on her part. Her payment would have been somewhere under 3k/month assuming a 10 year payback. That’s not small but if you have a job as a doc, it’s workable. I am all for reducing debt, etc (and think about some of those posters who are willing to take this amount of debt for UNDERGRAD!) but the individual should still be responsible. I don’t support discharging student debt in bankruptcy.</p>
<p>^^she finished medical school, fella. At most she was making 45 -50k in residency for at least 3 years after that, not a lot to live on if you are living in an expensive area.</p>
<p>also once she started practice, she has a new office to open, equipment to buy, malpractice to pay, staff to hire, and until she receives her care/caid/insurance provider numbers, will have no income…so add her office loans to her student loans. she also isnt going to start with a waiting room full of patients, it takes time to build your patient base
and btw getting those numbers to get re-imbursed takes months!! we just had a change in suite number (nothing else just the suite number) and therefore had to re-apply to all providers (as they are all address based) …went from february to end of june with no re-imbursement for services from care, because thats how long it takes to change an address according to them.</p>
<p>My cardiologist who is in his late 50’s told me that when he was a resident in NYC, he worked three jobs just to pay his rent.</p>
<p>A good friend is the office manager for a busy single practicing OB/GYN, net income after all expenses were paid for 2009 (office staff, rent, malpractice insurance)</p>
<p>A whopping 75K a year.
Doc has two kids in medical school </p>
<p>Has decided to become employee of hospital income will increase with zero expenses. </p>
<p>Gone will be the independent solo practitioner in 20 years.</p>
<p>yes sami, that sounds about right for a solo (some will be higher in better reimbursement areas) . probably, the lenders of these ridiculous loans dont even realize the financial reality of medical practice anymore than the general public. people see their premiums increase and make the leap that the doctor benefits from those increases…not the case, the insurance companies are reducing reimbursements as the premiums increase. the next big expense for doctors is the mandatory switch to electronic records… computers, scanners, service contracts, software updates, etc. i have started checking and its not cheap… service contracts alone will run about 6K per year…if its mandatory i think they should help pay for it.</p>
<p>off my soapbox now…but the point was…public perception (and lender perception) and reality of physician financials are very different. YES, she is responsible for those debts, and she should have paid them (just as most med students do and as my H did) , but to think once out of school she was on easy street is wrong. once she got those loans/credit lines to start the practice, with no patient base, and no re-imbursement for a while, she probably put her money into keeping her office open .</p>