Miami- some pre-meds work as EMT’s (once they are certified) which takes the place of medical EC’s AND pay cash (good pay in some cities). Some pre-meds get paying research jobs (and NOT for pennies).
Your D did it one way- but there are many ways to skin the cat. I know kids who attended med school and got their loans forgiven by the federal government- even MORE lucrative than your D’s tuition scholarship at Miami. I know kids who attended med school for free in exchange for their service in the armed services. (Free med school- how about that).
A long time ago, another poster’s daughter , as well as my DS, had similar predicaments.
Both had offers of full tuition scholarships at “lesser” colleges and offers of admission at Ivys’, and we could realistically not afford to pay for both grad school and UG. .
If Med School is a near certainty, then she would be wise to choose a college that will allow her parents the opportunity to not have to worry about how to pay for her UG years.
Tip top kids can easily rise to the top of the heap during their UG years, at colleges where they are the big man on campus, remember that high GPA and MCAT scores, as well as research and great LOR’s are critical to admissions at the top med school.
Whether you can work for pay in the summer depends on your major and your priorities.
In my area, kids who absolutely, positively need money from summer work to help pay for college expenses often work as day camp counselors, even if this type of work is unrelated to their career goals. For students with experience (and many of them get that experience while still in high school), this kind of job is a sure thing. They can come back to it year after year and count on the income.
But if your family has enough money so that summer work is not truly necessary, would you want your child to do this? Or would you prefer that your child spend the summer in a way that furthers his/her goals?
The student who is required to have “skin in the game” even though it’s not truly necessary will be at that day camp even if that student’s career plans would have been better served by a summer of volunteer work directly related to the student’s interests or a summer spent working on an honors research project. Is that what you really want for your child?
This isn’t random at all. $27,000 is the amount of loan money the student can take in Direct Loans…in the student name only…for the total of the four years of undergrad school.
Not a random number…at all.
Like I said, we had both of our kids take the Direct Loan. Our graduation gift to them was repayment of those loans. This freed up their earnings to pay for other things. But we never mentioned it until graduation day…and when we did it for our older kid, we asked him to NOT say anything to his younger sibling so it would be a surprise these too.
The loan payments on that $27,000 Direct Loan would be $300 or so for 10 years. We wanted to pay for our kids to go to undergrad school.
I agree that there are various ways to achieve oan free life after medical school However, one need to consider if she wants to have a broader choices at the end or they are OK with whatever choice they will have in exchange for the loan forgiveness or even a free medical school. My D. was not accepted to a free medical school that she applied, however, she was put on hold and she knew that this school puts a lot of applicants on hold, she knew that there is a good chance of her being accepted there after all. She decided to withdraw though. Why? The “free” is not free. If you remember econ101, “there is no such thing as a free lunch”, it does not exist, forget about it. Here are the conditions (or the “fees” that one is paying at the “free” med. school that D. decided not to continue to pursue):
-It is 5 years, not 4. One year of physician’s salary is about $250k (maybe be higher or lower). So, you give up about $250k
There are no lectures
-There are no exams. These actually somewhat prepare medical students for Step 1.
additional year is spent on research, which may not be clinical.
D. decided that it is not for her.
Other options for having debt free medical school graduate also include limitations in locations / specialty, possibly others.
Well, these limitations maybe OK for some, but why limit yourself at the end, when your life is determined by your choices, when you can limit yourself at the beginning of the process when choosing your college when you know that the name of your college is not of any consequences?
Again, your choice, your life!