The financial realities of a top-notch medical education are definitely having undesirable consequences for society and young physicians. And some of those consequences are directly opposed to the stated goals of most medical schools.
What are the realities? The cost of a medical school education keeps rising. Today, four years of med school can easily put a med student $200K in debt.
How are these costs affecting the physician marketplace?
Society needs more physicians in primary care, which doesn’t pay as much as certain niche specialties. The high cost of medical school pushes some medical students into those specialties so that young doctors can recoup their investment. Furthermore, medical schools have wanted to diversify their populations to improve access for populations that have been underrepresented in medicine. Again, those populations find the med school price tag daunting if not insurmountable.
Medical schools are beginning to respond to this reality by offering ways to reduce or eliminate the cost of med ed, and future doctors’ debt load. Some schools are offering students the ability to study tuition-free, while others are offering tuition-free plus subsidy to make the process “debt-free.”
Medical schools differ in terms of the availability of these options. Some schools like Geisinger or Stanford make them available to a limited number of students, while others cover all students in their program. For some, like Kaiser Permanente, there is a time limit on the offer. And for some, like NYU, it’s all students and there is no time limit.
The first med school to offer a tuition-free medical education was NYU Grossman School of Medicine. In 2018 NYU announced a plan to cover full tuition for all medical students, regardless of merit or financial need. Others soon followed suit.
Tuition-free/debt-free medical schools
Here is a list of medical schools currently offering tuition-free/debt-free scholarship programs:
| Medical School |
Scholarship Covers |
Who Receives Scholarship |
|---|---|---|
| Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University | Full tuition scholarship | All CCLCM students receive a full scholarship that covers tuition and fees. (source) |
| Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine | Free tuition Fees Living stipend of $2,000/month |
Students who agree to a service commitment (working as a Geisinger-employed physician) of 2-4 years after finishing residency. Criteria include: financial need, merit, diversity, and likelihood of staying at Geisinger beyond the service obligation. (source) |
| Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai | Maximum debt of $75,000 over four years | Students with demonstrated financial need who are enrolled in the MD program. (source) |
| Kaiser Permanente | Free tuition | First 5 graduating classes (beginning with entering class of 2020) (source) |
| NYU Grossman School of Medicine | Free tuition | All students (source) |
| Stanford University School of Medicine | Free tuition Fees Living expenses |
Students qualifying for financial aid (source) |
| Washington University School of Medicine | Full and partial tuition awards available | Both financial need and academic merit are considered. Admitted applicants to the Washington University MD program entering 2019 or later. (source) |
| Weill Cornell Medicine | Free tuition Housing & living expenses |
Students qualifying for financial aid (source) |
If you attend or know of a school not listed here that has a tuition-free or debt-free program, please let us know so we can keep this list current.
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Related Resources:
- Navigate the Med School Maze, a free guide
- Medical School Selectivity Index: Are You a Competitive Applicant to Your Dream School?
- What’s the Cost of Applying to Med School?
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