<p>I am a high school student considering the medical field.</p>
<p>I have seen threads on CC showing how long it would take to repay the debt for all the schooling required to be a doctor and its about the age of 37 or something close to it.</p>
<p>So could someone please answer my questions:</p>
<p>(1) Simple question: Is debt defined to be the base principal you have to pay back or is it the principal plus the debt?</p>
<p>(2) I am not going to get a lot of financial assistance. So for people like me, how do they plan on paying for undergrad and medical school?</p>
<p>(3) Does a physician's salary compensate the cost of debt? It probably does and since I am not so good with the medical school and undergrad numbers, could anyone please tell me how long it would take me to pay back if I take a loan of 250,000 dollars with maybe an average interest rate (6.2%) with these plans?</p>
<ul>
<li>I really don't know what field exactly I would like to do, but am considering cardiology, neurology, pediatrics and immunology.</li>
<li>For undergrad, I am looking at a school like Penn State and for medical school I would be lucky to get in anywhere but lets say I got in Penn State Medical as well.</li>
</ul>
<p>So that's all my questions. I am really sorry that its this long.</p>
<p>FYI, I think it takes longer than just to age 37 to repay educational loans incurred during the course of getting a medical school education, depending on the kind of medical school attended, the amount of undergrad debt, and the field of specialization. (Once you graduate med school, you don’t start off earning big bucks. You have 3 to 9 more years of training to go. While you will be getting paid during residency and fellowships, you’ll only be making slightly more than your peer college BS science grads will be making. IOW, you won’t be making six figures the day they hand you your MD. You’ll still be years away from that kind of income.)</p>
<p>To see the minimum length of residency training for various medical specialties, go here:</p>
<p>Cardiology requires the IM residency plus an additional training fellowship. Immunology requires a IM residency plus an additional fellowship.</p>
<p>1) According to AAMC, the average debt for graduates of public medical schools (principal only, not including interest) is $140,000. This does not include and debt from undergrad. And beginning 2012 federal loans for graduate and professional school will not longer be subsidized–meaning interest will accrue while you’re in medical school. </p>
<p>2) For undergrad–go to the best school you can get scholarship money at. You want to minimize your debt as much as possible. For med school, most people borrow the Stafford limits in Federal loans, use Grad Plus loans, private loans and the Bank of Mom and Dad. There are a very few scholarship available for exceptional applicants, but you shouldn’t count on getting one.</p>
<p>3) That’s a hotly debated question… and increasingly the answer is maybe not.</p>
<p>Staffords are now 6.8% so I’ll use that number. This is for a 10 year payback starting immediately upon graduating from med school.</p>
<p>Here’s the calculator results from finaid.org</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Looking at the number above, the average yearly loan ($31,000) is much too low for the cost of medical school. (COA for the med school at the Hershey is currently $51,000/year. Penn State on-campus at University Park COA is around $27,000+/year)</p>
<p>Here’s the calculator so you can play around with the numbers:</p>
<p>Which isn’t going to happen, because no resident can afford those loan payments. However, from everything I’ve heard from attending physicians, you wont’ have a problem paying off your loans once you become an attending. In a high-paying field, you can pay them off really quick if you live on a budget for a few years.</p>
<p>Miami’s advice seems to make sense for students (from middle class families) who are not sure if they can get into a high paying field. See more discussions below:</p>
<p>I have alot of friends (surgeons) who are still “in debt” at age 55. But has it affected their lifestyle? No.</p>
<p>It is like buying a house. Simply an investment. Don’t worry about if. Or if you are, go military where it is free and you get paid. Miami’s advice is from one who did not do it so it is meaningless. Ask your parents what their debt is for their house? Your education loan is long term and low interest. </p>
<p>DO NOT PICK YOUR MED SCHOOL BASED ON YOUR FEAR OF DEBT NOR YOUR PROFESSION BASED ON HOW MUCH $$. In fact, the middle and lower classe usually do much better than the upper class. eg Harvard is totally free if income < $100,000 and tuition free if < something like $150,000.</p>
<p>ace550,
'who are not sure if they can get into a high paying field." - not sure what do you mean by that. We are discussing MD’s, they are all considered highly paid. Not all of them are making millions, actually very few. Did you mean millions when you refer to “high paying field”? If so, then you eliminate most MD’s. Then consider my advice to be applicable to every single person going to Med. School.</p>
<p>Princess’Dad,
" Miami’s advice is from one who did not do it so it is meaningless." -???
My D. went to UG for free (Merit awards) and she did not take loans at Med. School so far. it might happen in a future, but so far she is loan free.</p>
<p>Miami,
What I mean is that you have not taken out the loans and learned that it does not affect your life - so it is hard for you to advise others regarding it. It sounds terrible to have such a big debt. But, do you see any of your doctor friends at your Country Club that it seems to have affected their lifestyle. It does not.
It is great that your D has been able to go free so far. I calculated the cost of UG and G school for my kids at birth and put that money away for them with compounding interest and they also went/going free.
But again, it is like buying a house. Unless you are different than most of us, you have to take a loan. Great for tax deduction later.<br>
Unlike a lot of people who cannot afford their home loans, “all docs” (even those who make “only” $100,000 can afford to pay of their student loans. Would I have prefered to have bought a Rolls with what I paid in loans, but I would also like to win the lottery…</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I’ve read that a lot of doctors like some other occupations spend freely to keep up appearances (doctors are perceived to be wealthy) and are heavily in debt.</p></li>
<li><p>Harvard is not tuition or anything else free solely based on income. If you’ve been thrifty and saved a million, regardless of your income, you’ll pay.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>DocT
That is true for all professionals. I know one new Doc in Texas who was told to buy aligator boots “to look successful”</p>
<p>Harvard’s web: they will see that families with incomes between $65,000 and $150,000 will contribute from 0 to 10 percent of income, depending on individual circumstances. Beginning with the Class of 2016, families with incomes between $150,000 and $180,000 will be asked to pay slightly more than 10 percent of income</p>
<p>Depending on circumstances - they look at your tax returns for the previous two years, information on all your bank accounts, investments, mortgages etc. Regardless of your income, if you’ve saved enough to pay for school - you’ll pay.</p>
<p>Its not true of all professionals. Its true of those who deal with the public. I played around with real estate and was an agent for a while. When I was listing some property, the owner asked me why I was driving the car that I had. He said I’m obviously not very successful and was a bit unwilling to list with me. I made up a story that my car was being repaired and this one was a loaner.</p>
<p>I disagree with the first part of this. At least, for most doctors I do. If you want to be a physician in practice, seeing patients, and not a leading researcher or professor, you should treat medical school like trade school. Because medical school is trade school.</p>
<p>The liver is the liver, and it works the same way whether you learn about it at Johns Hopkins or the University of New Mexico.</p>
<p>If you’re not made of money, and you want to make your living by seeing patients, go to medical school at your home-state university and pay resident tuition. It’ll be expensive, but it’ll cost a lot less than Hopkins. And at the end, you’ll be a doctor either way.</p>
<p>In fact, I think if you want to be a leading researcher, you should probably still go to your home-state medical school, excel there, and then do your residency and fellowships at Hopkins or Mass. General or someplace else really fancy.</p>
<p>PD, DocT, your discussion of financial aid at Harvard is about HMS, right? The policy at the HMS is:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So DocT is correct. IF you have the money, they will ask you to pay. </p>
<p>The programs I will apply to at Harvard do not even require the filing of a financial report since they have no tuition and pay a stipend. If only the whole world could be like Harvard. :)</p>
<p>HYP offer better need-based scholarship. But, how many premeds can get into them? My colleague’s daughter transferred to a private school in the west coast after sophomore year. He paid $160K for her tuition/expenses including one gap year. She went to a private medical school in NY and accumulated a loan over $250K. My colleague, fortunately, has only one daughter and he is still working at 67. It is getting close to the case below:</p>
<p>The definition of “high paying” is arbitrary. I would guess that physicians in high paying fields should get around $200K/yr or above after tax and insurance. Doctor’s pay is not looking good down the road. My company offers employees a new healthcare plan. The annual deductible is $3K followed by 80% coverage until $8K. The concept is for employees to shop around for the best and least expensive healthcare providers. You bet that I will check the rating and the pricing before I see my next specialist.</p>
<p>Princess’Dad,
“Miami,
What I mean is that you have not taken out the loans and learned that it does not affect your life - so it is hard for you to advise others regarding it. It sounds terrible to have such a big debt.”</p>
<p>-My advice was to minimize expences if this is a concern. I do not see anything wrong with my advice. I could have been millions in debt, if I choose to do so. I have chosen “the cheapest” routes and only things that I could afford, in education or anything else in my life. I see myself in the best possition to advise, since I have followed my own strategy and it has been working wonderfully.</p>
<p>If you’re flexible on where you’ll set up your practice, it’s quite possible the hospital that recruits you will pay off your debt in exchange for staying in their community for x years. </p>
<p>The average salaries that you see could be quite far off compared to your situation when you make your calculation. A huge factor is whether you are employed and receive a paycheck (generally lower salary) or if you have your own practice or are a partner (potentially much higher salary, but you can end up losing money too…). The other factor about physicians who are their own bosses is that you have the opportunity to take a cut off what others in your office generate - if you’re a straight employee, say a GI doc, you will get a W-2 salary and perhaps a performance bonus. If you’re on your own and have a GI lab, you get paid for the technical (“Hospital-portion”) of the scopes that you do, which actually can be higher.</p>