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As someone with a good deal of medical school debt, I will say this: when you start medical school it’s easy to brush off how easy it is to pay back in your mind, but the reality hits hard when you graduate and also finish residency.

take enough out for a decent standard of living but buy what you need, with occasional treats to yourself to maintain sanity.

you will thank me in four years. Plus, I have limited faith in plsf and for some reason they seem to have not included 3 years of my residency payments and with all that’s going on with them now, I doubt that would get fixed anytime soon.. also the future of physician salaries is hard to predict especially with the push for universal healthcare and everything else.

Plus income tax really sucks for doctors.
 
Not completely related, but take the time to take a deep look at scholarship opportunities either from your school or from outside programs. My school is similar in the way that many of my classmates come from rich families and you'd be surprised how few people actually apply for scholarships. Even with a moderate amount of effort I've gotten ~$15k in scholarships that I would not have gotten if I hadn't taken the time to apply.
 
The $15K more to live more comfortably is worth it, probably. The extra debt to invest or save doesn’t make much sense. Easier to just not have the debt.

Also, don’t put all your eggs in the PSLF basket. Partly because of the reasons @DrAmazingishere listed, partly because who knows if or for how long it’ll still exist when you graduate, and partly because non-profit attending jobs aren’t as common as you probably think (a lot of physicians are in private practice or work for an outside/private group that covers the hospital vs being hospital employees)
 
dartaniandoc said:
the extra $15k is for sure. Starting salaries for my specialty is ~400k give or take (underestimating to be safe). A buddy in a less lucrative specialty signed a contract for high 300s with a chill schedule.

assuming PSLF gets nixed I’d probably just jump straight into PP and just knock it out in two years (I could easily live off 60 making 320 post tax), even if salaries for slashed 20%

I guess taking the extra 60k is a risk I’m willing to take, which will cost me ~8k in fees/interest (give or take depending on the market)

the two specific residencies I’m aiming for allow lots of moonlighting (can nearly double salary from people I’ve talked to) so that should give me a bit of safety too
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Don't kill yourself living on Raman noodles, but I would keep the loans as low as you can. You're looking at 8-10 years from now. Maybe you're married. Maybe you've got a couple kids and its hard to live on 60k with a 40k childcare bill. Maybe your new spouse wants to live in a higher COL area. Maybe you find that you want to stay academic and take a lower salary. Maybe PSLF is harder to qualify for or the IBR payments are higher in the meantime. Maybe you decide you hate medicine and want to retire early, but you're tethered for longer due to a larger debt burden. All I'm saying is you keep a lot more options open in life by owing less money to people, even if there's a chance you come out ahead by borrowing more.
 
DoctwoB said:
Don't kill yourself living on Raman noodles, but I would keep the loans as low as you can. You're looking at 8-10 years from now. Maybe you're married. Maybe you've got a couple kids and its hard to live on 60k with a 40k childcare bill. Maybe your new spouse wants to live in a higher COL area. Maybe you find that you want to stay academic and take a lower salary. Maybe PSLF is harder to qualify for or the IBR payments are higher in the meantime. Maybe you decide you hate medicine and want to retire early, but you're tethered for longer due to a larger debt burden. All I'm saying is you keep a lot more options open in life by owing less money to people, even if there's a chance you come out ahead by borrowing more.
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Adding to reasons to think more about 6 years down the road - $60K extra now is a LOT more after 5-6 years of residency, assuming interest comes back to haunt us.

You also don’t know yet if resident-you wants to moonlight (or if resident-you needs to study, wants to sleep, or has a spouse who wants to see you occasionally).

Also, it sounds like you’re planning on future-you making bank, so I still don’t get why you want to get more money now you’ll have to pay back with high interest vs. having less debt and therefore more to invest later.

Then again you seem pretty set on doing this regardless of feedback so I don’t know why I am typing all this.
 
Take out loans to live reasonably but no more. Investments can gain or lose. Inflation skews things too.

Don’t try to predict the future. You might have to take an extra year of tuition to finish. PSLF might go away before you can use it. You might be forced into a low paying specialty. You could have child support.

Point is, don’t go to either extreme. Don’t torture yourself for 4 years but don’t borrow more than you need and regret it later either.
 
I had pretty grandiose goals of taking out less than the max… but starting my fourth year, I can officially say I ended up always taking the max. If it wasn’t one thing for me, it was another - high COL near my school, board prep resources, deciding to pick up a second degree from my school, paying a ton to move, ending a relationship where I was splitting costs 50/50 so all of a sudden “my part” was the whole kit and caboodle, and now, I’m planning to drop a ton of money on residency apps. It is what it is.

If you’re good with money, it really shouldn’t matter tbh. I am planning on paying off all my debt before PSLF can kick in fully, if it even exists when I’m done. I’ve lived on literally $1200/month after taxes before so I feel you. If you don’t allow the “attending creep” to happen until your loans are fully paid off, I’d wager you could pay them off in less than five years anyway.

I agree with everyone else that if you can save, you should… but it is also not going to be the end of the world if you can’t, so don’t feel bad about it if it turns out you do need the money. Don’t take out extra to invest, though. Not a good idea IMO.
 
I would NOT take out Grad Plus loans to invest. Long term, you'll likely only break even, but short term (<10 years), who knows what will happen. What if the market crashes during your 2nd year in residency and that 100k suddenly turns into 50k for 2-3 years? Even worse, you are still accruing the original ~6-7% interest on the full 100k.

You made a few grandiose assumptions about your future but even on a base level, you could pay off 400k of debt with a 200k income. The question is: can you be 100% positive that future-you will be able to resist lifestyle inflation? What if you see your classmates buying $2MM houses and yachts a few years out of residency - will you feel pressured to match their lifestyles?

Personal finance may be built upon math but the most important factor is emotion. I'm more liberal with debt and even without PSLF, your numbers look good enough to be able to pay off the full 400k in at most 10 years. The question is: will you have the self-control to put ~$5,000 per MONTH into this debt as a physician.

**Personally, I would just take out enough (15K for you) so I could live comfortably. Anything above that is a net negative as taking out a loan at 6-7% APR is almost always a terrible deal.
 
ortnakas said:
The $15K more to live more comfortably is worth it, probably. The extra debt to invest or save doesn’t make much sense. Easier to just not have the debt.

Also, don’t put all your eggs in the PSLF basket. Partly because of the reasons @DrAmazingishere listed, partly because who knows if or for how long it’ll still exist when you graduate, and partly because non-profit attending jobs aren’t as common as you probably think (a lot of physicians are in private practice or work for an outside/private group that covers the hospital vs being hospital employees)
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I agree with not taking out more debt than is necessary but I don’t understand people who worry about PSLF going away for current borrowers any time soon. There is language about PSLF in the master promissory notes. Beyond that, proposed changes to PSLF have historically died. Even those proposals have always been for new borrowers, grandfathering in current borrowers. There have been no serious proposals to eliminate PSLF for current borrowers. I have no idea why people make PSLF out to be such a risky option.
 
iforget2 said:
Not completely related, but take the time to take a deep look at scholarship opportunities either from your school or from outside programs. My school is similar in the way that many of my classmates come from rich families and you'd be surprised how few people actually apply for scholarships. Even with a moderate amount of effort I've gotten ~$15k in scholarships that I would not have gotten if I hadn't taken the time to apply.
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Any input are where to look? Any tips? I'm drowning here.

Finishing up my M1/M2 summer and was working 60hrs a week to stay afloat while my classmates are traveling the world, so all help is appreciated <3
 
dartaniandoc said:
You’re right. All these are assumptions and may very well not happen (I could come disabled, change my mindset, etc) but it’s a risk I’m willing to take for a chance at a free ~60k, in addition to whatever is forgiven. The interest will be halved during residency (REPAYE) which improves my odds.

I live pretty minimally (can pack my entire life into a small car). Many of my friends are already driving $80k BMWs as residents (debt free and very well-off parents). Our group of friends consists of a mix of rich/poor and in no way does it make me feel pressured to acquire the same materials. In fact, the two rich ones plan on working only 1-2 days a week in primary care. None of my relatives or family friends make >50k so no pressure there either.

If PSLF went away (it won’t cuz it’s in the MPN and congress is too incompetent to change it), but let’s say it does. I can easily put 70% of my income towards it and knock it out in two years (did this to pay for college working a job and two side hustles), and graduated debt free.

Some choose to live on the coasts, taking a pay cut and higher COL. I consider staying in my “undesirable” hometown an advantage. Higher salary, low COL.
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What answer are you hoping to find here? Pretty much everyone has told you we all collectively think this is a bad idea but it sounds like you're going to do it anyway. I don't think you're going to find affirmation here. 60k + the market gains will likely, at most, be a years worth of work as an attending. Instead of all of those unknowns if that amount of money really matters our collective opinion is delay your retirement by one year or pick a specialty that has one year less of training and you will realize the exact same gains with zero uncertainty or risk and no debt.

But if you're going to do it anyway, it is what it is. You don't have to talk circles around us or justify it. We all KNOW your math can make sense and I think even a few of us will tell you that it has a >50% chance of making you some money and working out just fine if that's really what you want to hear, but there's a non-zero chance you get totally screwed for an amount of money that will be relatively insignificant over the course of your career as a physician.

The advice remains live comfortably in medical school and residency and take a more traditional approach. Anything else is non-traditional for a reason: it has significant risk. The reason our advice is what it is, is because you'll have enough money to do literally anything you want at any point in your life once you become an attending within reason. Big house? Yes. Crazy car? Sure. Wild vacations? Frequently. Massive retirement account? Yup. You'll get all of those without trying to squeeze money out of loans and leverage loan money in the stock market. So why is the added risk, work, and discomfort of living like you're in undergrad for a really long time necessary when you'll get all of those things that lots of money gets you anyway?
 
One other thing that hasn't really been mentioned is that one could construe this as being immoral. You would be deliberately taking extra money from the government in order to abuse a program that would allow forgiveness (likely beyond its original intent) at the expense of the taxpayers, 99% of whom will make less money then you ever will. You would hardly be the first person to abuse US tax or government programs, but that doesn't make it right.
 
DoctwoB said:
One other thing that hasn't really been mentioned is that one could construe this as being immoral. You would be deliberately taking extra money from the government in order to abuse a program that would allow forgiveness (likely beyond its original intent) at the expense of the taxpayers, 99% of whom will make less money then you ever will. You would hardly be the first person to abuse US tax or government programs, but that doesn't make it right.
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WCI has talked about this on his last two episodes. It technically goes against the agreement signed when accepting the loans.
 
dartaniandoc said:
So it would be alright if I chose to live in luxury apartments (extra $600 vs what I pay) like most of my classmates, and lease a new car (our school budgets $7k for transportation) vs being frugal with these two expenses (and others) and saving the rest
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You agree to use these funds for living and school.

Will there be repercussions of not abiding from these rules? Unlikely. But you would be breaching a contract and making a questionable moral decision.
 
dartaniandoc said:
I didn’t qualify for any merit aid (less than 10% of our class got some) but did get one tiny need-based (~5% of tuition). Better than most I guess.

where’s the best place to find external scholarships? I did get some in undergrad but they seem non-existent for med school
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@dartaniandoc and @WhatAreMyChancesFriends on the external scholarships question:

Most scholarships are going to come from your school, but sometimes you have to apply.
Also look over the websites of your state medical society and county medical societies. They will often sponsor scholarships for students already in med school, sometimes for minority students or students meeting other criteria like place of residence, community outreach, essay contest, etc.
 
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