New York University School of Medicine (NYU) announced free tuition for all of its medical students, regardless of merit or need. The plan is effective immediately and covers all current and future students. The cost of attending NYU’s medical school, this year, was $55,018.
Rising Medical School Costs
According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, a nonprofit organization which represents United States medical schools and academic health centers, 75% of all doctors in the U.S. graduated with debt in 2017. The median annual cost of a private school medical education is now $59,605 and most medical students leave medical school with approximately $202,000 in student debt. These financial barriers to attending medical school often discourage promising students from considering a career in medicine.
Many government programs help students pay for medical school or even forgive their loans. These programs often require that students serve in the military, public health service or practice medicine in an underprivileged area.
The Department of Education has a Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that forgives outstanding loan balances after 10 years for those who work in public service careers. The National Health Service Corps offers a scholarship program and loan repayment program for medical professionals who serve areas that have a shortage of health professionals. The Health Professions Scholarship Programs covers 100% of medical school expenses in exchange for four years of active duty service with the United States Army, the United States Navy, or the United States Air Force.
NYU is not alone. Other medical schools have also begun to help medical students pay their school debts. One example is programs that let students earn their degrees in three years rather than four, which reduces the overall cost by 25%. The Consortium of Accelerated Medical Pathway Programs is an organization of medical schools that offer accelerated MD programs and study financial, regulatory, and competency matters. The Consortium was founded in 2015. The 13 medical schools who allow students to graduate medical school in three years are:
- Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, Camden, New Jersey
- Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina
- McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
- Medical College of Wisconsin–Central Wisconsin, Wausau, Wisconsin
- Medical College of Wisconsin, Green Bay, Wisconsin
- Mercer University School of Medicine, Savannah, Georgia
- NYU School of Medicine, New York, New York
- Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
- Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania
- Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine, Lubbock, Texas
- University of California, Davis, School of Medicine, Sacramento, California
- University of Louisville School of Medicine, Louisville, Kentucky
- University of Kentucky School of Medicine, Lexington, Kentucky
Other medical schools have begun offering tuition-free programs. Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University offer a free five-year program that trains medical researchers, granting their graduates both a Doctor of Medicine and a special research credential master’s degree. University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) offers merit-based scholarships that cover the entire cost of medical education to 20% of its students. Columbia University recently announced a $250 million endowment that is intended to pay all medical school expenses for students in financial need.
With its recent announcement, NYU School of Medicine became the only top-ranked medical school to offer all of its students free tuition.
If we talk about medical colleges in Chikogo, obviously we have to name Delmon Medical College for its quality teaching for co-curricular activities at the same time.