4th year $$$ refunds and gifts

[Caffeine Matters]

I have heard several schools are giving their graduating students several hundred dollars in tuition reimbursement or graduation fund reimbursement!?!?!
Any other 4th years getting some sort of gift or financial compensation?

If so, please list: gift and school.
Hopefully with enough data, we can each encourage our schools to do the same

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[Caramos]

I was pretty happy when our school decided to give us free diploma frames

 

[Caffeine Matters]

Which school?

 

[Dr. Death]

Oklahoma State is giving either a $300 diploma frame or bookstore credit. And a $50 amazon gift card

 

[samac]

KYCOM is giving us a giant middle finger.

 

[crazyboi1993]

LECOM giving us $800 as a reiumbrsement for our graduation fee, but there is no graduation or virtual graduation. TBH ill take the 800 and gladly use it to buy a couch for my new place

 

[BugzBunnyDoc]

NYITCOM- free frame, $100 credit to their bookstore for NYITCOM gear, and $487 per student from the CARES act.

 

[TwistedTea]

We got our 400 grad fee back, diploma frame, and online med ed intern bootcamp. They always give diploma frames though. The online meded is nice but woulda rather have had them buy us uworld for step 1/2 cuz 1k >150 bucks for bootcamp lol. I think they are trying to use the recency effect aka being nice at the end of school after twisting the shaft for four years on us so we donate lawl- nice try most of us took psych 101

 

[Goro]

KYCOM is giving us a giant middle finger.

You too? My school has been, well, disappointing.

 

[samac]

You too? My school has been, well, disappointing.

Yeah, unfortunately. We were pretty much kicked to the curb the moment clinicals switched to online. They even used to give graduation gifts to graduating seniors (has ranged from gift cards to iPad minis) and they stated they were suspending that policy this year.
At least I have the diploma!

 

[Goro]

Yeah, unfortunately. We were pretty much kicked to the curb the moment clinicals started. They even used to give graduation gifts to graduating seniors (has ranged from gift cards to iPad minis) and they stated they were suspending that policy this year.
At least I have the diploma!

They just wiped out an entire cohort of potential donors in 20 years

 

[TwistedTea]

Yeah, unfortunately. We were pretty much kicked to the curb the moment clinicals switched to online. They even used to give graduation gifts to graduating seniors (has ranged from gift cards to iPad minis) and they stated they were suspending that policy this year.
At least I have the diploma!

i would rather have paid KYCOM tuition and have had them pay for my board exams than get a few free things and have much higher tuition like LMU DCOM has. hell I think DCOM hit 53k this year about. But I agree that is pretty dirty. KYCOM has the same form of slime that runs my school

They just wiped out an entire cohort of potential donors in 20 years

I still don't know why people give to university when most the money at many places isnt even used to fund education. I know my school uses our tuition to fund new projects to prop up their new PT OT VET, etc programs. Its all in the 990 so this is not speculation on my part. The AACOM spreadsheet shows LMU dcom being I believe the number one most profitable DO school (private) in the country with a very generous profit:education cost statement. And they want us to donate lol!

 

[Ho0v-man]

They just wiped out an entire cohort of potential donors in 20 years

I just don’t understand why anyone would donate to a med school. Maybe create a scholarship or something sure. But writing them yet another check after 4 years of bleeding me dry? Nope.

 

[TwistedTea]

I just don’t understand why anyone would donate to a med school. Maybe create a scholarship or something sure. But writing them yet another check after 4 years of bleeding me dry? Nope.

bleeding us dry and not paying nearly as much in taxes due to non or not profit status. I would rather donate to Wells Fargo.

 

[Goro]

I just don’t understand why anyone would donate to a med school. Maybe create a scholarship or something sure. But writing them yet another check after 4 years of bleeding me dry? Nope.

Oh they do, to a degree. But their short term vision is far more acute than their long term thinking.

 

[TwistedTea]

Oh they do, to a degree. But their short term vision is far more acute than their long term thinking.

People donate to medical schools? Much less DO schools? The only place I would consider donating would be the community college I took my prereqs at. Probably had the highest quality instruction of any place I have ever been. Very low instructor: class ratio, and actual helpful faculty. It was nice having some support taking physics after not taking math for years. N=1 though.
It was a different world going to medical school where I was where even though I was a top student they still never answered any of my few questions I had via email or scoffed like I was a ***** if they did. It was such a cluster F

 

[Goro]

People donate to medical schools? Much less DO schools? The only place I would consider donating would be the community college I took my prereqs at. Probably had the highest quality instruction of any place I have ever been. Very low instructor: class ratio, and actual helpful faculty. It was nice having some support taking physics after not taking math for years. N=1 though.
It was a different world going to medical school where I was where even though I was a top student they still never answered any of my few questions I had via email or scoffed like I was a ***** if they did. It was such a cluster F

You've never heard the of word endowment? Harvard and Stanford have them to the tune of $1 billion. The guy who started Home Depot gave some $600 million to NYU so they could give thier students a free ride in perpetuity.

But yes, former students start donating once they make their careers. Believe it or not, some student have good memories of medical school (or, as I suspect, time heals all wounds)

But to me, it seems like DO schools really suck at fundraising. Well, maybe not Nova, who finally got enough money from Kiren Patel to change the name of thier school.

 

[Hippocrates II]

People donate to medical schools? Much less DO schools? The only place I would consider donating would be the community college I took my prereqs at. Probably had the highest quality instruction of any place I have ever been. Very low instructor: class ratio, and actual helpful faculty. It was nice having some support taking physics after not taking math for years. N=1 though.
It was a different world going to medical school where I was where even though I was a top student they still never answered any of my few questions I had via email or scoffed like I was a ***** if they did. It was such a cluster F

Some doctor donated 250k last year during the alum day at KCU. I was shocked. You really can't think of a better cause than a 50k/year medical school to donate your money? Not one?!

 

[samac]

You've never heard the of word endowment? Harvard and Stanford have them to the tune of $1 billion. The guy who started Home Depot gave some $600 million to NYU so they could give thier students a free ride in perpetuity.

But yes, former students start donating once they make their careers. Believe it or not, some student have good memories of medical school (or, as I suspect, time heals all wounds)

But to me, it seems like DO schools really suck at fundraising. Well, maybe not Nova, who finally got enough money from Kiren Patel to change the name of thier school.

I’ve got to say as bitter as I and class feel right now I don’t ever see myself donating to my medical Alma mater.
My undergrad on the other hand gave me a degree for free, paid for my room and board, and sent me to England. They can have some of my money.

 

[ERK123]

You've never heard the of word endowment? Harvard and Stanford have them to the tune of $1 billion. The guy who started Home Depot gave some $600 million to NYU so they could give thier students a free ride in perpetuity.

But yes, former students start donating once they make their careers. Believe it or not, some student have good memories of medical school (or, as I suspect, time heals all wounds)

But to me, it seems like DO schools really suck at fundraising. Well, maybe not Nova, who finally got enough money from Kiren Patel to change the name of thier school.

Our DO school has a fairly large endowment for a DO school. I think around $500 million. While I feel the attitude toward donating to medical school is fairly different in the age of massive debt and branch campus expansion, I have no idea how some of my classmates will feel 20 years from now. People like notoriety, and massive donations to a medical school can provide this if the outreach is handled correctly. I had a fairly good experience in medical school, but my good feelings are for my classmates and some of the professors. I mostly have disgust for the overall school and the administration. I would really only be willing to donate to a severance package to those admins that I feel are causing the most damage to our school, but such pettiness is not really worth the effort unless I am more miserable than I intend to be in 20 years.

 

[TwistedTea]

You've never heard the of word endowment? Harvard and Stanford have them to the tune of $1 billion. The guy who started Home Depot gave some $600 million to NYU so they could give thier students a free ride in perpetuity.

But yes, former students start donating once they make their careers. Believe it or not, some student have good memories of medical school (or, as I suspect, time heals all wounds)

But to me, it seems like DO schools really suck at fundraising. Well, maybe not Nova, who finally got enough money from Kiren Patel to change the name of thier school.

I think providing money for scholarships is diff than donating to school to increase their coffers. Even then there were no scholarships for my school. At least not by any metrics I would consider politically neutral or worthy.
Maybe if they opened up a merit based scholarship I would donate. Otherwise nah.

 

[Goro]

I think providing money for scholarships is diff than donating to school to increase their coffers. Even then there were no scholarships for my school. At least not by any metrics I would consider politically neutral or worthy.

The only area where my own school seems to have any luck in fundraising is with getting some scholarship money. Not that we're any good with it. we have only a single fundraiser for the entire campus. Major med schools have entire departments devoted to fundraising!

A fundraising expert told me to my surprise that donations toward Libraries are always popular. People seem to have good memories about libraries. Go figure.

 

[hallowmann]

The only area where my own school seems to have any luck in fundraising is with getting some scholarship money. Not that we're any good with it. we have only a single fundraiser for the entire campus. Major med schools have entire departments devoted to fundraising!

A fundraising expert told me to my surprise that donations toward Libraries are always popular. People seem to have good memories about libraries. Go figure.

Yeah, the only aspect of med school I might consider donating to in the distant future is the scholarship fund. Beyond that, no, they don't need my money.

 

[Neopolymath]

I question the intelligence of anyone donating money to any of these academic institutions unless there are clear stipulations on how the money is used to directly fund students (aka the school touches no money). These schools don't need financial help and it's incredible that anyone could think so. How could someone who graduated from medical be so stupid?

 

[TwistedTea]

The only area where my own school seems to have any luck in fundraising is with getting some scholarship money. Not that we're any good with it. we have only a single fundraiser for the entire campus. Major med schools have entire departments devoted to fundraising!

A fundraising expert told me to my surprise that donations toward Libraries are always popular. People seem to have good memories about libraries. Go figure.

They charge enough tuition to make nice libraries and everything else students should get for 50k a pop. We were always lacking for study space and I’m going to go out on a limb and say it wasn’t because they could not afford it.
In this day and age it is utterly stupid to give any money to higher education unless it directly benefits students by lowering tuition. Donate to khan academy or one of the many YouTube paetrons that provide FREE resources that are much more effective than many med school lectures.
/end rant