@auntyji
With your DS stats, has he considered a MD/PhD program ? Most MD/PhD programs are fully supported by the institution with a full-tuition scholarship ( during MD and PhD), a monthly stipend, and employee benefits like health insurance. The duration of a MD/PhD program can be 7-8 years.
@@auntyji
FYI, if one is interested in a military service, all military branches have good scholarship programs for prospective medical students.
Something to think about, definitely. It’s a lot of time though, and he’s not interested in research primarily…much more of a people person.
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The schools that give free money calling it financial aid require parental FAFSA plus other financial information (CSS?) just like undergrad schools. Older D was admitted to Yale and didn’t get a penny in FA based on parental assets and income (they didnt care about younger D starting college). They also play a game where the undergrad schools dont recognize the parents being forced to pay for grad school if you have two kids at different levels. Columbia essentially said they didnt consider my older daughter’s medical school costs as parental responsibility when considering FA for my younger one knowing fully well how the other Ivy policies work (they said it would not matter if my older daughter were to attend Columbia med - she was waitlisted at that time).
As far as I know, the loans given to students don’t consider anything outside of student and spousal assets and income (parents not considered for medical school need). Since my kids didnt borrow, I don’t have any information on the different types of loans.
That is frightening. I thought Columbia was one of the more generous schools for aid @texaspg Or is that more recent in response to NYU…?
A couple of perhaps dumb questions…
Is there anything like Net Price Calculators for med school so applicants are not committing blind to private schools that may or may not give aid?
Also, any opinions on if it’s wiser for parents to pay off what’s left of the 30 year mortgage or keep assets liquid to help pay for med school?
Thanks so much…learning a lot more here than anywhere!
From my experience with Yale med, they use home value as well as liquid assets that is listed in CSS profile outside of 401k/retirement. So if you have cash+home equity of 500,000, it counts as 50k available per year (someone may know this better than me but thats what my daughter was told - our home valuation essentially eliminated need in our case). In this example, if COA is 80k, 30k to be borrowed by student and 50k to be given by parents which means they are expecting 200k for parents and if they are not willing to pay, then students have to borrow.
What changed with Columbia and Cornell is that the 30k is no longer part of the equation. So now the school will give the 30k and still expect the student to contribute whatever they come up with as the parental contribution in the above situation, essentially dropping the COA to 50k if they determine need.
Ugh!! Thank you for explaining! Good to know how it works…UMass is looking really good right now!
It depends on the specific school’s FA policies. Generally speaking, any school that provides institutional aid will require parental financial info either via a parental FAFSA, Needs Access or the school’s’ own FA forms.
BTW, medical students are generally NOT considered to be financially independent by med schools even through they may be 35 years old or older, are college grads, have lived independently & filed their own tax returns-- often for years, or are married. (In the case of married students, parental AND spousal financial info will be required.)
Federal direct student loans for health professions are capped at $40.5K/year. These are unsubsidized loans that begin to accrue interest the moment they are disbursed. There is an annual origination fee on these loans.
Grad Plus loans are supplemental loans available to graduate and professional school students. The limit on these loans are the published COA of the specific school. However, these loan have a higher origination fee and a significantly higher interest rate than the fed student loans.
Being eligible for Grad Plus loans requires having a clean credit record and decent credit score. Assets aren’t considered and income is not considered outside of its effects on the applicant’s credit history. (Really–think about how many recent college grads have a significant income or own significant assets? Very few…) A student with NO credit history may not qualify for Grad Plus loans.
PSLF is still available to young physicians. However, as I posted above, it’s not a program that can be relied on. Congress keeps threatening to eliminate it or bar potential high income earners (like doctors and lawyers) from participating in the program. It’s continued existence is year-to-year, at the whims of Congress. A young physician can only count on using PSLF if they are already grandfathered into the program. I would urge anyone interested in using PSLF to repay medical school debt to enroll in the program the minute they graduate from med school.
While all residency and fellowship positions qualify for PSLF repayment programs, most attending positions don’t. The doctor must be directly employed by a qualifying 503c organization in order be eligible fo PSLF. This is tough to do unless the doctor is an employee by a academic or other publicly financed hospital. (Like the VA, IHS, or publicly funded county hospital–aka hospital of last resort.) Most physicians are NOT direct employees; they are contracted employees–even at academic medical centers/public hospitals. This fact disqualifies them for PSLF. Democratic physician groups (doctor owned medical practices) don’t qualify for PSLF. Neither do any of the large group corporate medical practices.
Also, as I mentioned above, the amount of any loan forgiven through PSLF is treated as taxable income to recipient. IOW, when the young doc finishes their 10 years of consistent monthly repayments, they get a nasty tax surprise at the end.
tl;dr–don’t count on using PSLF to repay medical school debt UNLESS one is already participating in the program.
No such things exist. You just have to apply and wait for FA offers to be tendered. Every school has its own calculus about which students they want to recruit.
BTW, the WSJ is reporting that med school applications are up over 17% compared to last year. This is going to be a very competitive cycle.
That’s a big jump in applicants. DS took the MCAT late after it was cancelled a couple of times and decided to apply next cycle. Perhaps the pandemic is partly the reason for the increased interest. I don’t doubt that it will continue to get more competitive.
I really wish the FA process was more transparent, but will try and understand and learn what we can…
A good motto to live by w/r/t paying for med school–
Expect to be full pay and be pleasantly surprised if you’re not.
@auntyij
Fit or not fit ask your DS to apply to all the 4 Mass school. Most likely & cost effective choice will be UMass when the time comes to commit.
If he has done UG at some other state, he should include that school if it has medical college.
Understanding this now!! Thank you, and everyone else, so much for all the advice and info!!
Definitely doing this. He went to one of the four for undergrad, but it isn’t cheap…
I was checking tuition at UMass and noticed that OOS tuition at Baylor is cheaper than instate at UMass. There is about 25k difference per year between private and instate public which means it is an extra 100k for 4 years to attend a private school anywhere in the country vs attending instate state school. I calculated about 160k difference for instate in Texas vs attending a private school outside of state (Baylor as a private is cheap for even outsiders).
That’s substantial. We’ll reccommend Baylor for his list, for sure. Thank you for pointing that out!
Baylor, although a private med school, receives some funding from the state of Texas IIRC, which is why in-state students pay ~10K less tuition-wise. While the school’s FAQ states that it doesn’t give preference to in-state students, unlike most other private med schools, it primarily enrolls TX students (~20-25% students are outside of TX, according to the school’s enrollment statistics.)
BCM Enrollment Statistics: https://www.bcm.edu/sites/default/files/2020-09/2020-2021-Official-Enrollment-Report.pdf
Hope that helps! Good luck with admissions!
Baylor is mostly funded by the state which is why their instate and OOS fees are very comparable to Texas instate schools. Since they have a low percentage of seats for OOS, they have taken the route of attracting top students from OOS with low tuition when their peers are charging almost 30k more per year in tuition.
The FAQs do not say BCM doesn’t give preference to Texas residents, they say “The admissions committee uses the same criteria to evaluate applicants whether they are in-state or out-of-state residents.”
Clearly with 75% of each class comprised of in-state students, and an in-state acceptance rate of 13%-14% vs. 1%-2% for OOS, BCM gives preference to in-state students.
Texas state has bought a large percentage of seats from Baylor using a funding agreement. At one time it used to be 75% or more but lately the instate numbers are trending at 85%.