<p>One has to be a fool to enter the medical profession, incur tremendous debt, waste years of time, when there are quicker ways of making a buck.</p>
<p>Good point, DocT. Doctors should be in the practice because they love the profession, not for the money. The fact is that they generally do make enough money to pay back their loans, but not necessarily live like an investment banker.</p>
<p>^^in the past this was true - it is no longer clear that it is true today.</p>
<p>Tuition by itself is one thing, but including room, board, fees, equipment for first year students, required insurance etc and etc, they’re all 40k+</p>
<p>Well, if the tuition is different at privates vs publics, why isn’t the total cost different? Wouldn’t they all have to add in those extra costs?</p>
<p>One thing that should definitely be looked at by the government is the fees tacked on by these loan companies that escalate rapaciously. $53,000 fee tacked on for having to send her account to a collection agency? Ridiculous!</p>
<p>How much of her $500,000 debt consists of these fees, penalties, etc.?</p>
<p>I agree with Bay. We had enormous loans from H’s med school, and had no choice but to defer most of them through residency, as there’s no way we could make the payments on that salary with a family. But once he finished that, though he took a relatively low paying inner city peeds job, we paid about 1400 a month in loans (this was 20+ years ago). He (we) weren’t in it for the money, never lived like a doctor is “supposed to” and never missed a payment.</p>
<p>"Well, if the tuition is different at privates vs publics, why isn’t the total cost different? Wouldn’t they all have to add in those extra costs? "</p>
<p>Here is a sample of some private medical schools that my kid applied to:</p>
<p>Harvard medical school - $66600
Yale medical school - $64300
Tufts medical school - $71996</p>
<p>What’s the all-in cost?</p>
<p>67000 x four years = ~268,000. What sort of payment does that generate? How long does it have to be deferred? What are the different residency options, and for how long? What is the expected income afterwards? What are the tax benefits on loan payments. I guess I’m still trying to figure the expected quality of life.</p>
<p>DocT…</p>
<p>Is that just tuition or is that COA? I’m trying to compare apples with apples.</p>
<p>If it’s just tuition, how much should be added for room, board, books, labs, supplies, etc?</p>
<hr>
<p>Mr Payne…</p>
<p>It’s hard to know the payment because Stafford loans for med school maxes out at around $224k. After that, a person has to take out personal loans. That $224 is the max for med school and undergrad, so if you’ve borrowed Staffords for undergrad, you’ll run out of Stafford borrowing power earlier and have to cover more with private loans. </p>
<p>But…if “all” (ha ha) you had to borrow was the $224k Stafford, then your payment would be just under $2600 per month for 10 years.</p>
<p>Those are apples to apples comparisons - cost of attending</p>
<p>One item that I found incredible was that $120 of the $300 dollar monthly unemployment compensation checks were garnished to pay off these sharks. I lost my job and the unemployment that we get is an absolute lifeline even tho it does not begin to pay for all living costs. On it, we get a place to live, but the rest , such as food (!), is not covered.</p>
<p>No amount of fine print should allow someone’s lifeline to be taken. The plus-people, or whatever they are, can wait.</p>
<p>There should be laws against such practices. If there are not such laws, please ask your representatives to make such laws.</p>
<p>Thanks DocT…Well if going private isn’t that much more… :)</p>
<p>DocT, are you going to answer the question? This is truly an area of curiousity. I want to know “how bad is it” in terms of new med students expected quality of life.</p>
<p>"You guys are joking. The doctor’s decision to put off paying her monthly debt while in residency is simply ■■■■■■■■. The interest compounding is exponential and will create a snowball effect. For her to choose family practice, one of the, if not THE, lowest paying specialties, is even more ■■■■■■■■.</p>
<p>Regardless of how much the loan is, my guess is that a specialist such as an anesthesiologist or dermatologist can pay off any amount of loan.</p>
<p>I think the lesson here is simple: Specialize in medicine or waste your MD."</p>
<p>As harsh as it is, I have to agree with the what this poster said. I wouldn’t say not do what you love, but find a way that you aren’t in crazy debt while pursuing it. She could have found a cheaper school, scholarships, etc. And deferring the loans while in residency is ridiculous. You don’t get paid in peanuts while in residency. She could have paid something.
But loan lenders are truly ridiculous to begin with.</p>
<p>My husband chose private med school, an FP residency, then a MPH. It’s been 20 years, and he’s still paying loans, which I believe included some “plus”. He makes more than 100k, but a bit less than 200k, about 20 years after graduation, and as chief of his dept. We are not doing poorly, …but …we wish we weren’t full pay for my D’s private college!..THERE…I dared say it! ( Full disclosure…I went to an HBCU for undergrad and med school, had an ROTC scholarship and just a few loans at 6 and 9 percent. i honestly don’t remember how long I deferred my loans over my 10 years of training after undergrad, but the payments were less than $200/mos, and i finished a LONG time ago).</p>
<p>I think big loans might be “wasteful”, but not being a primary care doctor. BTW, I specialized, trained 6 years after medical school, and because of how I choose to practice ( I don’t specialize in pills ), I don’t make as much as he does.</p>
<p>I think the lesson here is simple…go to an HBCU! My class was VERY diverse!</p>
<p>Just curious, could she join the Peace Corp or the armed forces or serve in some underprivileged area and get her debt discharged?</p>
<p>Mr. Payne: I don’t know the answer to your question so I can’t answer it. As far as specializing in a high paying specialty, it takes more years of lousy pay and those specialities are much more competitive to get into.</p>
<p>ellemenope, I think you hit the nail on the head…it’s often not how much they borrowed but how much extra was tacked on due to fees if payments are missed or the loan is deferred that pushes the debt to a ridiculous level. The stories on the Project on Student Debt site are testimony to that and it sounds like those fees are not disclosed up front to the borrower. This woman’s story is remarkable simply because she started out with a higher debt amount, but there are many student loans out there that have tripled with equally devastating consequences to the borrower.</p>
<p>" The stories on the Project on Student Debt site are testimony to that and it sounds like those fees are not disclosed up front to the borrower."</p>
<p>Doesn’t it have to be communicated to them in some capacity? A contract doesn’t have to say something like “If you miss X number of payments then we have to add Y amount for collection fees” in the contract somewhere?</p>
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</p>
<p>This isn’t true. One look at anesthesiology can show this. Yes, it is more competitive, but not much more so. Family medicine is the lowest on the totem pole (according to USMLE Step 1 score statistics, arguably the most influential part of your application to residencies) aside from Psychiatry with around a 207 Step 1 score. Anesthesiology residencies are around 218-222. There are other residencies around this score region that are well-paying. Neurosurgery is around 235, Dermatology, Plastic Surgery, Radiology, and Orthopedic Surgery are up around 240-250.</p>
<p>Family medicine is a 4 year residency, as is Anesthesiology, Dermatology, General Surgery, and many other residencies (I’m not 100% sure on gen surg, but pretty sure). Neurosurgery is a significant outlier at 7-9 years.</p>
<p>Of the ROAD specialties (Radiology, Orthopedic, Anesthesiology, Dermatology), anesthesiology is the least competitive. With a 225 a medical student will more than likely match into SOME anesthesiology residency, if not a pretty good one, and where you go for residency doesn’t matter unless you plan on going into academia. Coming out of a 4 year anesthesiology residency, an anesthesiologist can plan to make around $200,000-$300,000 a year before taxes. If said anesthesiology decides on going into private practice and can cut it, he/she will make ~$250-300,000 for about 4 years and then probably become a partner. Depending on the location, this can yield upward of $600,000 per year (pre-tax), and pain management fellows are particularly sought after.</p>
<p>This is just an example. There are residencies other than family medicine that are not that much more competitive to get into, and there are not ‘more years of lousy pay.’ I guess it depends on what you consider a high-paying specialty; orthopedic, plastic, neuro, and cardio are definitely much more competitive and much more work intensive, but these are not the only high-paying specialties out there.</p>