Paying for Medical School

Medical school is not cheap. As a matter of fact, it’s quite expensive. According to AMCAS, the median 4-year cost of attendance for the class of 2021 was $259,347 (public school) and $346,955 (private school). While there are 7 medical schools in the US that waive tuition–yep, you read that right–for some students (3 of them have no tuition for all students) all the other schools haven’t caught on and they are still collecting as many coins as they can get. So, in addition to being a strong applicant and getting accepted in the first place, you also must consider the costs of attending medical school. Cost is a big deterrent to a lot of students, especially Black students, thinking they can become a physician. I don’t want you to be in this group; there are ways to pay for medical school! If you do all the hard work to get accepted and really want to be a physician, then you are going to medical school!! 

Here are some common ways people pay for their medical education.   

Military

Most people who really know me will say that I am the most sensitive person they know. And I can admit (at this stage in my life) that they’re probably right. I put on a good front, but my feelings are very easily hurt and I take a lot of things really personally. So God and I both knew that I would not make it through a single day of anybody’s military boot camp with people yelling at me. So I never even considered this as an option for paying for school. But stronger-willed people do it and it pays. Like, it literally pays. In addition to covering tuition, the military branches also give you a signing bonus (~$20,000) and pay you a monthly stipend (~$2000/month) during medical school. I know friends who enlisted after completing school and they entered as an Officer because they’d received a professional degree. You still have to go through the training though…I checked. Of course, there is a service return for this all this money, usually a commitment of so many years after your training and maybe some requirements during your training as well. Here are quick links to Army, Navy, and Air Force Health Professional Scholarship Programs. Remember, the military ain’t for everybody! Be like me and know yourself and what you can and cannot tolerate before you choose this option! 

State service programs

This is how I paid for (most of) my medical school training. I live in Alabama and there is a significant shortage of primary care physicians, especially in rural areas of the state. At that time, they offered what was essentially a loan of $40,000/year for return of a year service. So I committed to 4 years of practice in rural Alabama after residency for 4 x $40,000 = $160,000. And when my 4 years are over (next month!!), my loan will be forgiven. Now that didn’t completely cover all of my medical school expenses, but it was a BIG help, especially with all of the undergrad loans I had from Duke. And I already knew I wanted to practice in an underserved area, so letting someone else pay for my medical school to do so was kind of a no-brainer. I know several states in the Southeast have similar programs to place physicians in underserved areas of their state. If this is something that interests you, check out your home state. But, just like the military, this money is not free. These people want the time you promised them or they will come find you and collect what you owe and it will be taxed. In Alabama, you have to give them back something like 3x the loan amount if you renege on your end. Uhhh no ma’am! So before you enter an agreement like this, you need to know that you can do it for the time promised. 

National Health Service Corps (NHSC)

Somewhat similar to state service programs is the National Health Service Corps. NHSC offers both scholarships and loan repayment for time served in needed areas. There are pre-determined NHSC approved sites in communities across the country. You do get some say in where you go but have to understand that it may not necessarily be in the town you want or state you want–you go where there is a need and a site with an opening.

School scholarships and financial aid

Individual medical schools offer scholarships, you can usually find lists of them on their websites. Most will have endowed minority/URiM scholarships. Look for and apply for these! You may not even have to apply depending on how you answered certain questions on your application, but you should check. FAFSA is still a thing in medical school and you still need to complete it. Schools can use this information to award aid and determine your scholarship eligibility as well. If you were accepted into the Fee Assistance Program, schools may also offer you additional financial aid. Be sure to ask about these options for need-based aid at schools you’re accepted to. This is not the time to be proud and leave money on the table! Everybody is coming out with a degree, why pay more for yours than you have to?

Scholarships

Just like when you were applying to college and there were local/national/foundation scholarships available—medical school is no different. People are still giving money away, you just have to go look for it! There are scholarships for women, minorities, students who want to go into primary care, students with demonstrated financial need, first-generation medical students, etc. I just did a Google search and found several lists, they’re out there! These scholarships may be $5000 or $50,000 in value…apply for them ALL. This money will add up. And every $1 you can get in scholarships is $5 that you don’t have to repay in loans. 

Student loans

Individual medical schools may offer institutional loans and there are definitely federal and private loans available in medical school. The ease of getting student loans is the reason most people will say you shouldn’t worry about money when it comes to medical school. While I agree that the cost of medical school should not keep you from going if you’re accepted, I don’t want you going crazy with taking out loans either. Yes, you will make enough money to pay them back but who wants to be giving Sallie Mae and Uncle Sam a chunk of their paycheck every month for years?? Certainly not me…but every month, that’s exactly what I do. So I encourage you to seek out any and all possible scholarships and consider if you can do a service obligation to repay money given to you before taking out a bunch of student loans, especially if you already have a lot of undergraduate loans. It’s completely okay if you can’t do the service, please don’t let anyone talk you into this if you aren’t sure—remember, that payback is real, sometimes it’s better to have the freedom to practice where you want and how you want and just pay a loan later than it is to be “locked in” to something you don’t want. And loans can be paid off later, it is doable. You’re going to make more money in residency than 60% of people in the US and you will make much more than that as a full attending physician. And if you’re disciplined enough to live like a resident a few years into being an attending, you can put a lot of that big paycheck into paying those loans off quicker. So yes you can pay them off but, again, no need to pay off more than you have to. Take out only as many loans as you need and be disciplined to pay them off as quickly as possible. That Range Rover (with all its expensive maintenance issues–been there, done that, got the receipts) will still be there when you’re debt free!

Compare the costs of schools

You can do this right now, just by looking at schools’ websites, to see the tuition rates. Honestly, a medical degree is a medical degree. Scroll back up and compare the costs of public vs private medical schools. If money is a real concern for you, you need to be looking to get that medical degree somewhere that is cost-effective. That means state/public schools and schools that are dedicated to providing financial aid to URiM/Black students. When (speaking it into existence) you are accepted, one of the first things you need to do is find out what type of aid each school is willing to give you and you should speak to the financial aid advisors at each school you’re considering accepting. And cost of attending definitely needs to be a big factor in your decision of where to attend.

Start minding your money now!

One thing you can do to help yourself in the future is to be mindful of money now as a college student. Yes, medical school is expensive but, if you’re careless, college can be expensive too. Start being money-wise now. Don’t accept loans you don’t need, don’t get and max out credit cards just because you got offers in the mail, don’t blow your Pell grant on silly things you don’t need, and don’t leave scholarship money on the table. Every year of college, you should be looking for and applying for scholarships. It adds up! I, personally, will be paying back my undergraduate debt for much longer than I’ll be paying for medical school debt. And while I’m hoping Joe will come through with some forgiveness on these federal loans, I still have to plan like he won’t! You should too—be careful that you are not wasting college loans and not missing scholarship opportunities.

Know medicine is what you want!

We’ve established already that medical school is expensive. The last thing you want to do is get through 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 years with loans and then decide it’s not for you. Because Navient doesn’t care if you decided your calling was really to teach underwater basket weaving instead of being a doctor…they want their money, with interest. And they’re gonna get it. So spend time shadowing, getting medical exposure, and talking to physicians as a pre-med student to make sure you know medicine is what you really want to do! We’re not in the business of donating money to loan companies because we changed our mind or were only pursuing medicine to make someone else happy.

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So this was a lot and I feel like I could still write a lot more…

The goal in this post was not at all to discourage you about being able to pay for medical school. In fact, it was just the opposite! I don’t want you to be naïve about the costs of attending medical school, but I do want you to know that there is money out there! There are scholarships, service-repayment programs, student loans, and so many other options that I didn’t even get to in this post. As I said before, if you get accepted to medical school and you really want to be a physician, then you’re going! There are ways to pay for it! 

AAMC offers more information on paying for school.

Do you have any questions or concerns about being able to pay for your medical education? Does this post make you feel more or less anxious about being able to pay for medical school? Feel free to leave a comment below or send me an email anytime!