Does SGU offer a refund if its graduate wouldnt get licensed??? Does any medical school???
So, in light of all of the above, I ask you this: At this time, why would a potential student risk going to your school?
Besides other reasons, most of the potential students:
1. DO NOT want to end up with over $300,000 in debt upon graduation.
2. DO NOT have MCAT.
I'm trying to help you, CMU. You're coming on here with an agenda, but you aren't listening. Instead, you're trying to throw down the gauntlet and get into a pissing match. (Remember what I said about the rope...)
This all comes down to marketshare. Here's what the "big four" schools have that you don't:
1) Licensure in all fifty states.
2) Access to federal loans.
3) Solid and proven track record of placing their graduates in residencies, some of them quite competitive, in the U.S. and Cananda.
4) Appropriate accreditations that back-up and provide assurances that their program has met equivalency to U.S. education standards.
You have, as it currently stands,
none of those. And, it is a well-established business principle that once someone has established a solid grasp on the marketshare, it is very difficult for others to break-in without offering some other competitive incentive. This is true whether you're selling pharmaceuticals, ketchup, or cola.
Many of us also recognize that there are fly-by-night operations that offer an inferior product at a discount in an attempt to horn-in on that marketshare. The way to assuage a lot of the concerns about this is to offer some sort of guarantee. This makes people much more likely to take the risk, if they feel they have a parachute.
You need to spend more time listening. That's my diagnosis. I don't think you're creatively thinking about how you can get more students to come to your school, aside from some assertion that it "costs less" than going other routes. If the diploma isn't worth the paper it's written on, in the end, it doesn't matter if it only costs $1 (plus all the time, blood, sweat, and tears invested, of course). That's the concern.
If you truly want to increase the number of students attending your school, I would think about how you can creatively incentivize students to make the choice to come to your school
and work diligently to avoid controversies such as the one that started this very thread. This would include some sort of
real and honest discussion with potential students up front about the current limitations your school has, what you're doing to fix them, and then offering some sort of guarantee that they will get a refund if they complete your program and can't get a
bona fide position somewhere.
This is all predicated, of course, on the premise that you're actually trying to run a legitimate medical education program and aren't just a bunch of crooks trying to take people's money. And, for what it's worth, some people would pay a lot of money for the
free advice you were just given. Be grateful for that, not bellicose.
-Skip