<p>1) Transferring is generally bad. You essentially surrender what ever sort of relationships and social capital you’d accumulated to go back down to zero at your new school. The only reasons transferring between 4 year schools makes sense are some sort of family crisis, if finances change (ie parents who were paying for school lose their job) or if you’re truly miserable and it’s affecting your ability to be successful. </p>
<p>2) I don’t know about you, but going into a situation that I know I’m going to be ending soon makes it really hard for me to be a motivated joiner. If I knew I was only going to be in a place for a year, it’d be really, really hard for me to do EC’s, volunteer, even make friends. I </p>
<p>3) Debt makes a huge difference. You’re going to be taking out even more money in medical school. And while doctors salaries are high, when you’re resident, just out of medical school, your salary is only in the mid-upper 40’s. I’m starting residency in July and my salary is going to be a little over $45,000. The great majority of residents put their loans into forbearance during residency because they don’t have enough money to pay them, so they sit there accumulating interest. </p>
<p>Just to give you an idea of the repayment schedule when you do start paying them off (this data is from my school’s financial aid office handed out during our loan exit interview which is required by law, so it’s legit). </p>
<p>The average medical student takes out $140k in loans to pay for their medical school education/living expenses. Current student loan interest rates are locked in at 6.8%. </p>
<p>(I don’t have the loan repayment schedule for those figures, but do have it for 138,500 at 7.00% interest)
With $138k principal and 7% interest </p>
<p>with a 10 year repayment period (120 monthly payments): $1608.10 or 19297.20 a year.
with a 15 year repayment period (180 monthly payments): $1244.88 or 14938.56 a year
with a 20 year repayment period (240 monthly payments): $1073.79 or 12885.48 a year</p>
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<p>Now, yes, when you’re a physician making $240k a year or more, those are manageable, but probably not the most pleasant way to part with your money. And if you’re doing the things that people in their mid to late 20’s and 30’s are doing - getting married, buying a new car, trying to buy a house, having kids, saving for college, putting money away for retirement, it’s not like this is your only expense. And if you want to do the specialties that make the big bucks, you’re talking about longer residencies, fellowships, and more forbearance which means more interest, and so on…</p>
<p>Now add on a hugely expensive undergrad education (hopefully you’re getting some sort of aid package), and tuition at a private medical school (there’s a lot less free money available to medicals students) and you could easily be talking about half a million dollars in student loan debt…so you tell me, is debt not a problem?</p>
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