We are Michigan residents. I just learned that several newer med schools at public universities have no difference in tuition for in state and out of state residents (Western Mich University Homer Stryker School of Medicine & Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine in particular). These two schools opened within the last few years. Other med schools in the state have different tuition rates for residents and non-residents. Is this common in other states?
Good question and I would like to understand the reason behind this. Experts of this forum will respond.
Generally when local tax payers money goes to the medical school, there may be difference. Noticed this in U of Pittsburg also. Though it is a state school and UG there is IS and OOS state, for medical college of UPitt not much difference in fees.
Temple University falls in the same category- kind of a private university. There is NOT huge difference in IS and OOS tuition for medical school. NJMS has a huge difference (approximately 20k) between IS and OOS tuition in medical school.
New Mexico State’s Burrell College of Medicine is private. (Private because a big donor came in and gave both land and money to set up endowment to get the approval process going. The donor also did major fund-raising to get the school built. Funding for starting a second NM medical school had been hung up in the legislature for over 10 years.)
IIRC, all of PA’s “public” med school (Pitt, Temple and Penn State) are public-private hybrids. Basically these are private med schools to which the state of PA pays a subsidy for every PA student accepted. And it’s been that way for forever–even back when I was in college it was the same.
And in Texas it’s sort of the opposite. Tx residents get a huge discount for private Baylor (which is not owned by Baylor Univ)
It is not just Medicine. Many state schools charge private level tuition for many professional graduate programs, e.g. UCLA MBA with a minimal instate tuition discount.
Management MBA
California resident students
$56,403
Nonresident students
$59,290
RE: Baylor COM–the med school “divorced” the undergrad in 1969 in order to gain access to certain federal research funds. As part of the divorce process, the COM’s governing board negotiated a deal w/the TX state legislature to double its class size in return for state financial support.
So Baylor really isn’t private–it’s public-private hybrid much like the PA public med schools.
The state of TX provides significant funding to Baylor COM, both as a direct block grant and in the form a per student grant for each TX resident the COM enrolled. (For 2013, $10.3M block and $4436 per in state student supplemental stipend)
see:http://www.lbb.state.tx.us/Documents/Publications/Primer/690_Higher_Education_Finance.pdf
Good info!
@WayOutWestMom I wonder if the Baylor COM hybrid status was a reason for the failed merger negotiations to merge with Rice University across the street?
No idea, but medical school-undergrad mergers seem to fail more often than they succeed. From what I understand the process is enormously complicated, long and expensive.
Baylor University and Baylor COM were in merger negotiations about 5 years ago; when those failed Rice stepped in, but couldn’t make it work either.
When Hahnemann Medical College’s parent company went in bankruptcy in 2002, Princeton was offered the chance to buy the med school and hospital system and spent the better part of year trying to work out a deal. After negotiations fell apart, Drexel bought the med school(s) and its hospital system–and Drexel SOM was born. The merger between Drexel and Tenat Healthcare (Hahnemann’s parent company) is a still on-going 20 year long process.
With regard to the specific med schools in question:
Western Michigan acquired the school from Kalamazoo College - a private institution. Both schools are part owned by private hospitals.
Disappointing that we have so few “affordable” options in our state of Michigan. Four med schools, with about 600 seats, that give a tuition break to state residents. Do students consider the cost of various medical schools in deciding where to attend, or does it come down to “I got in!” and then finding the best program? To me, the $35,000/year and $55,000/year difference in tuition is significant and would weigh into the decision.
It depends.
The majority of matriculating students get only a single acceptance. ([Medical Student Questionnaire](https://www.aamc.org/download/450608/data/msq2015report.pdf)) Thus the question of cost and fit is moot. You go where you get accepted.
If the student is among those with multiple acceptances, then the choice becomes highly personal and depends on career goals, proximity to family/significant other, curriculum, fit, cost, research opportunities, location etc.
In D1’s case she happily attended our in-state public. (She had a second acceptance to an OOS private that was similarly ranked to the in-state, but cost over 3X as much. She said the decision was a no-brainer…) In D2’s case the decision was more difficult. She had 5 acceptance–4 acceptances to top 35 schools (2 OOS publics, 2 privates including one in the USN top 10) plus the lower ranked in-state public. In the end she chose to attend the in-state because of fit. (Although the merit award they offered her didn’t hurt either.)
Edited to add: [AMCAS: Tuition and Student Fees](https://www.aamc.org/data/tuitionandstudentfees/)
^^
If you want to see what the costs at various public & privates, including in-state and OOS fee differentials.
Thanks, WOWMom, for the comparison costs. Very helpful.
Everyone I know who got into more than one medical school considered the costs. Doesn’t mean they always went with the cheapest, but how much it was costing them to get the things they wanted was thought about.
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Disappointing that we have so few “affordable” options in our state of Michigan. Four med schools, with about 600 seats, that give a tuition break to state residents. Do students consider the cost of various medical schools in deciding where to attend, or does it come down to “I got in!” and then finding the best program? To me, the $35,000/year and $55,000/year difference in tuition is significant and would weigh into the decision.
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When someone only gets into one med school, they go…no matter the cost.
when my son got into a few med schools, including two instate publics, he decided to choose an instate public, but to the higher ranked one. For him to have chosen a pricier private, it would have had to have offered something spectacular to justify the add’l costs. I think many would do the same.