Financing med school?

Question

I want to go to med school to become a psychiatrist or neurologist. I know med school is ultra expensive, and I'm planning to get a job on campus during my undergrad years. However, I heard that to increase my chances into getting to med school it would be good to do an internship in the med field. Yet I don't think you get paid for doing that, and although I would be interested, I need to finance my further education just as well. By the way, my mom is helping me pay for my undergrad, but I don't want her to pay more when I'm in med school since I'll be a lot older, and I don't her to be responsible for parts of my future at that point. Any advice? And will it eventually be worth it with malpractice and paying off loans...will I still make the claimed salary as shown on career websites?

Answer 1

The practice of medicine is a very lucrative, but also a very challenging career. The education process is long and arduous, and, as you have already discovered, extremely expensive. The average educational debt of graduating medical school students last year was (close your eyes)...

$139,517

More than 3 out of every 4 med school grads reported a debt in excess of $100,000

Yikes.

When you see those numbers, you realize that very few medical school students can even begin to finance their educations out of pocket - you can see just how much the average student needs to borrow, just to make it through. With debts that large, you can easily imagine that it takes many years of big dollar monthly payments to pay off med school debt - fortunately, the medical profession is one of a very few professions that even holds out the possibility of being able to afford that kind of risky borrowing.

There are special educational loan products for professional school students - prospective doctors and lawyers can borrow more than just about any other graduate students.

Do yourself the favor of checking into the programs that will forgive large chunks of medical school loans if you sign an agreement to practice in an under-served area of the US (or other countries) for a certain period of time, immediately after you have finished your education. You won't make the big time bucks in these jobs, but you will gain phenomenal experience, and save a lot of money when it comes to paying off your loans.

Good luck to you - I hope this helped.