Easing medical student debt: Some solutions

Medical school tuition is soaring, and so are the amounts of money students owe when they graduate. A team effort is needed to reduce the burden.

Editorial. Sept. 18, 2006.

Summer is drawing to an end, and a new group of bright-eyed, idealistic first-year medical students is settling into campuses. These students should be focused on anatomy as they begin their journey to become the nation's next generation of physicians -- not worried about how they will pay for their education.

Unfortunately, though, how to pay for classes is increasingly on medical students' minds.

The median price tag for a year of allopathic medical school in 2004 stood at more than $19,000 at public institutions -- 169% more than in 1985 when adjusted for inflation. Students at private schools granting MDs paid more than $37,000 in tuition -- a 53% increase over 1985 when adjusted for inflation.

Those figures come from data the Assn. of American Medical Colleges collected. And not surprisingly, the data show that the median student debt has soared as well.

In 2005, the median debt for those who earned their MDs at public schools was $115,000. That figure jumps to $150,000 for MDs who attended private schools. The story is similar for doctors with new DOs. Students graduating from DO-granting medical schools in 2003 had an average $134,000 in debt, according to a report from the American Medical Association.

That's a lot of numbers to digest. But those numbers have a real impact on medicine.

Specifically, debt can play a role in everything from whether the nation's best and brightest go to medical school to, perhaps, what specialty future physicians choose.