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<p>If you go to Boston College and you have to borrow $40,000 a year, you will be in debt $160,000 after four years. Let’s assume that you can actually borrow that kind of debt. Let’s also assume that you do go to medical school, and let’s assume that by the time you start each year of med school is $60,000 (which is probably an underestimate). You will borrow the full cost, so that is $240,000. $160K + 240K = $400,000.</p>
<p>Assuming the standard loan interest rate of 6.8% (also an underestimate, as the majority of your loans will be private or PLUS loans), and a repayment period of 10 years (the standard), you will have to repay $4,600 per month. For the record, that’s about $55,000 per year. That’s about twice what I make currently as a graduate student. Even if you extend the loan period to 30 years (which I think is pretty common for medical loans), that’s still $2600/month. What’s more, over the life of the loan you will pay almost a million dollars in combined interest and principal. The interest comes to just under $540,000 over the lifetime of the loan, and remember that we underestimated the interest.</p>
<p>That is a life-crushing amount of debt. Physicians are well-paid, but primary care physicians average about $180,000 and a starting specialist wouldn’t even make enough money to avoid that being life-crushing debt, especially after taxes and malpractice. Faith, unfortunately does not defy statistics. You won’t be able to enjoy your upper-middle-class status as a physician with those loans hanging over your head. They will impact your ability to get married, buy a house, buy a car, and plan for your children’s future. Let’s not even get into what might happen if you are unable to get into medical school - or change your mind, as most pre-meds do. Totally. Not. Worth it.</p>
<p>I used the loan calculators at FinAid.org, by the way.</p>