Med students with kids

DCM said:

How is the financial aid money for providing for a family. My daughter will be one when school starts and my wife stays at home. We will likely have more children during school.

Is it best to go with a NHSC or HPSP scholarship to relieve some stress or can you make it work with loans? Is there a cushion available if you get into trouble and need more cash?

Click to expand...

Hi there,
The federal financial aid generally does not do much in terms of family coverage. You can apply for private loans for coverage of items above the federal loan limits but check the payback requirements very carefully. Some of the private loans require you to start paying back during residency where money is even tighter than during medical school.

Some medical schools have begun to include things such as insurance benefits for dependents in their student health coverage. Investigate this because fees for health insurance can be very expensive when you are on a tight budget.

Public health scholarships are great but they require you to go into primary care. If you find that you really want to go into a specialty, you have to fulfill your primary care obligations before you can go into residency for your specialty. Also, public health scholarships generally cover tuition with a small living allowance so be very sure of how much you need for family expenses and that you want to go into primary care before you sign on the dotted line. There is a very famous case of an anesthesiologist who receive four years of public health money and then went into anesthesiology. She now owes more than one million (loans + interest) since she hasn't been paying anything during the appeals of her case. She tried to declare financial hardship but making an anesthesiologist's salary does not qualify as a hardship even if you owe such a large amount. Bottom line: investigate any loans or scholarships before you sign up for anything.

Also, do some budgeting and saving for the years that you will not be working or working at a low salary. Pay off any high interest credit cards as soon as possible and put them in a bank vault so you won't be tempted to use them when money gets tight.

Do remember that some practice groups will pay off the loans of new members joining the practice if you practice for so many years with that particular group. This is especially true of many large family practice group practices in order to attract new partners to joing the group. This might also alleviate some of your debt.

Good luck and do lots of reseach into scholarships, tuition remission and debt management for medical students. It really pays off during residecy when you don't have a huge debt accruing interest.

njbmd 🙂