Well…maybe. Many residency grads choose to do fellowships after completing their residencies.
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That’s not worth it, at all. She will be making crappy resident pay for a few years with a huge debt to pay off. My daughter is in year 7 of crappy resident pay, so depending what specialty your D goes into, she will be living frugally for a minimum of 3 years or more. Just saw @thumper1 mention fellowship, which my D is doing. So it will be 8 years AFTER med school until she will be making decent money. No way is 500k worth it for your D. Huge mistake, imo.
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Your daughter has loan limits for the undergrad part of her studies. Freshman $5500, Sophomore $6500, Junior $7500. Anything above those amounts you will either need to co-sign, or you will need to take the loans yourselves as parents. Are you prepared to do this? If not, this school is not possible.
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Please select UMKC
If she wants to become a doctor, she have to take at least $500K in loans, tradition or BSMD.
With traditional, there is no guarantee she will get accepted.
Regardless of where she studies medicine it will cost at least $500K
Maybe…
If she doesn’t pursue fellowship.
Or retire from practicing after 20-25 years.
Or decide that medicine really isn’t her cuppa and quits the program.
Or she doesn’t postpone getting married/having a family/buying a house until she’s paid off her loans.
Or Congress doesn’t change the rules for PSLF so that she can retire her loans after 20 years of working at a low income clinic. (And btw, any loan & interest that are forgiven by PSLF will be considered as income to her and she will need to pay taxes on the forgiven amount. It’s a very nasty tax bomb many people don’t realize is built into PSLF.)
You and your daughter need to use an interest calculator to see just much more she will owe over and above the $500K she will need to borrow. interest rates for professional school loans are currently 7.05% (federal direct student loan) and 8.05% (Grad Plus loan–which is what your daughter will be borrowing above the $40K max for federal student loans). Plus there are annual fees on these loans she will need to pay every year or add to the balance she borrows: origination fees of 1.06% for federal student loans and 4.25% for Grad Plus loans.
Just one year of $40K loan over 7 years at 7.05% interest rate (how long she will be in med school and residency) will add $22K to her loan balance. That’s $22K x 4 years or $88K just for the federal student loans. For Grad Plus loans on the amount she borrows above the $40K/year federal student loan max will add even more interest to her debt. Don’t forget that additional interest compounds annually so she will be paying interest on her interest while in med school and residency. She will owe ~ $650K on her loan at the end of residency. And the interest will keep on accumulating even as she begins to pay off her loans.
When she starts working as a physician, she will be earning around $168K/year (that the national median for pediatricians, but your daughter won’t be making that much initially as an attending fresh out of residency). Right off the top she will have her income reduced 37% for federal income tax, then state and city income taxes, then social security and medicare deductions will each take a bite out of her salary. Plus she will be having additional payroll deductions for retirement plans; life, health and disability insurance (and if she’s wise she will also buy private disability and life insurance besides what her job offers her so write that into her monthly budget). So her take home is going to be around half of her gross earning. Her take home will be around $6600-7000/month. Sounds like a lot of money…but she will be paying half of that toward paying off her loans. Let’s say she puts 100% of her take home toward her loans…she will pay her entire take home income for 18 years just to pay off her education loans.
Sit down with your daughter using a loan calculator so she can see exactly how much it’s going to actually cost her to attend UMKC and how long it will take her to pay off her loans.
My daughters did the smart thing. They went to undergrad for free or near free (big merit scholarships) and then they went to our inexpensive instate med school–which cost under $20K/year for tuition & fees plus living expenses in a low COL area. One graduated with only $140K in loans (and interest rates were half of what they are now…); the other worked and saved for 2 years before she started med school, and got a couple of merit scholarships during med school so graduated with only $60K in loans. Both said it’s made a huge difference in their choices of specialty so they could pursue what interested them instead of picking something that allows them to pay off the debt.
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Simply NOT true.
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Agree…not uniformly true.
Cost of attendance at every US MD medical school–
https://students-residents.aamc.org/media/7071/download
There are only a dozen or so med schools that are over $100K/year for total COA. All of them are public med schools which charge a higher rate for OOS students.
Northeastern Ohio is the ONLY med school with a COA that hits $125K/year. And only for OOS students.
Several Texas med schools charge instate for OOS students and it currently runs about 50k per year. Many locals do it for lot less by living at home.
Many veterans have given their input, so not much to add here with one 1 word summary. Taking UMKC route is like suicidal. Knowing your C has got full ride at Arizona speaks she has accomplished better than many and capable to do the same in UG and MD if she continues her hard work and passion.
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It is not a rocket science to reduce the 2 years advantage to 1 year if she wants by completing UG in 3 years. Of course it is not recommended in the traditional route since need to focus on grade, and EC activities related to serving people, medicine etc. Again no pain, no gain.
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The cost for MD $400-500 is very high. It is not true. Tuition fees for in state public school is less. Of course students need to live with room mates and control the R&B expenses. Again, you can’t have it and eat it too. It is possible to contain the total cost to $200-250k in non TX MD schools.
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There are extreme thing like getting in to TX schools where invariably students get IS fees which is around $20-22k only. Don’t include in the plan, but just stating the fact.
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Not sure if you have saved any in 529 or old schemes etc which you can use to contain the loans.
She is capable to get MD seat via regular route without gap year or with gap year (to save some money). Don’t conclude too fast and assume UMKC is the best.
FYI. Just stating for info only. Every student is different and situations are unique. But anything possible. My child refused to apply to any school which will cost money including Ivies for UG (though as a parent we were willing and saved money). She got a full ride for UG and did it in 3 years and got lucky to get in to TX schools for MD (4 years total Tuition around $85k + $50k for R&B) + UG Misc & travel for 7 years etc around $25k. Total $160K for her BA & MD/MPH (in 4 years) which we saved in 529 $100k which turned out to $165k over a decade plus. No debt to student or parents. It takes efforts since all 7 summers either she did courses or projects which she enjoyed and felt not burdensome or guilt. All her choice and we never interfered in any of her decisions.
Anything is possible and encourage students to strive hard and face calculated risk. No one knows what is in store in life. Good luck.
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Hey @loolooo!
I think everyone else here did an excellent job in pretty much getting to all the points that I was going to say, and considering your personal circumstances, I wouldn’t do it. Your daughter was smart enough to get a full ride scholarship to the public state flagship of your state. If she is smart enough to be able to do that, then she is smart enough and dedicated/ambitious enough to be able to go through the traditional pathway to get to medical school, along with having a fulfilling undergraduate experience that is close to home and which she can then slowly transition towards adulthood and independence. Much different from being an out-of-state student having to move all the way to Missouri and only being able to fly home at certain times back to Arizona.
I very much understand your child’s angst. I was in that same position when I was a high school senior. I totally thought that there was no way that I’d be able to make it through the traditional route (based on “horror” stories from family friends’ experiences) & taking the MCAT and that UMKC’s 6 year BA/MD program “saved” me from that (and I was someone in high school who had read about and was prepared to do the premed route). But the truth of the matter is that any of those perceived problems alleviated were immediately replaced by newer problems, and those were ones which were much higher stakes. I’ll say this, saving 2 years, not having to take the MCAT, etc. are not good reasons to do this program.
As you mentioned, the 6 year program at UMKC BA/MD is one which runs year round with absolutely no summer breaks. So as you can imagine, burnout can be quite common among the student body.
Tuition is ridiculously high for people who are out-of-state, and while there are better financial aid options now compared to when I was there (when it was virtually non-existent for all BA/MD students), almost none of it goes to out-of-state BA/MD students. When I was in the UMKC program, the out-of-state tuition was around $50,000. It’s now close to $70,000. Do I think 400K to 500K in loans is worth it for the UMKC BA/MD program? Absolutely not. That’s a LOT of financial pressure for someone leaving high school to immediately agree to, especially for a first generation student (https://firstgen.naspa.org/why-first-gen/students/are-you-a-first-generation-student). It’s not at all a coincidence that UMKC BA/MD out-of-state students are HIGHLY economically privileged and come from very affluent families, many with parents who themselves are physicians.
Your daughter is very intelligent to have the foresight to see that BA/MD students are limited in what they can explore during the pseudo-undergraduate years. And this doesn’t even take into account the cold weather and homesickness factors that can sometimes be an issue for those who are regional and out-of-state.
Both University of Arizona allopathic medical schools (one in Tucson and one in Phoenix) have early assurance programs that you should check out, which I think your daughter could potentially qualify for.
Tucson: W.A. Franke Honors College Honors Early Assurance Program (HEAP) | W.A Franke Honors College
Phoenix: MD via Early Assurance Program | The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix
If you have any further questions or need advice, I’m happy to give it. You can private message me on CC as well.
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I will also mention that Arizona State is opening a new medical school in the Phoenix area in the next 2 years.
This is another in-state public, less expensive option for your daughter, besides the 2 University of Arizona med schools campuses.
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@Roentgen unable to DM you, not sure why. If there is another way to contact you or if you are able to PM me that would be very helpful!
To all of you in this thread: thank you. We are not very aware of how financial decisions on college and medical school work in this country so your responses have been very helpful. She has made the decision to say goodbye to UMKC and is sending you all thanks❤️ If anyone would be willing to further provide any advice please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Thank you all.
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Wishing your daughter much success in her future!
I think she made a wise decision, and a very difficult one.
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Can some one point to results of → BS/MD BS/DO Results Fall 2023?
Thank you in advance!
@tiger5 - Here is the link : BS/MD/DO RESULTS THREAD - Fall 2022-23 CYCLE
Hi Ashish - Possible to connect? My daughter has similar goals so looking for advice.
Thanks @Vicky2019 ! Appreciate it!
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