600k in loans is the new reality for many students

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Hold on bro I'm submitting my application to Goldman Sachs IBD. They can't afford to pass up my 3.7 GPA from Prestigious State U.

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Two things that people are trying to ignore, and one that no one has even mentioned:

1. PSLF. If you are working for a public institution, you can qualify. This allows your debt to be discharged after ten years. Extra special news: being an attending at a state-operated medical center counts.

2. If you don't qualify for PSLF, EVERYONE can use IBR, which stipulates that you pay 10% of your income per year for ten years towards your loans, and then the rest is forgiven. A few things here: as of now, there is a tax on that amount which is forgiven, which can be quite large.
a. There are currently proposals in legislature to eliminate this tax bomb.
b. If you are smart, you can put some extra income into savings during those ten years and be able to handle the tax bomb. You'll still have plenty of money leftover.
c. If you end up in a high-paying field (Spine Surgery) it'll actually cost less to pay off your loans than to do IBR.

Taking out loans to become a physician is not problematic, especially if you aren't taking out private loans. Everyone needs to calm down and remember that the system is designed so that, as physicians, you'll be able to live a nice lifestyle even with the debt you will build up. :)


While I completely agree with your final point, I think you're confusing IBR and PSLF a little bit.

IBR is one of a few different payment methods that can be used in your 10 year repayment time if you qualify for PSLF. IBR can also be used if you don't qualify for PSLF, but your remaining balance of federal loans will only be forgiven after 25 years of payment, and payments can go up to 15% of income. You would pay hella interest from 25 years of payments though, so I'm sure most physicians who don't qualify for PSLF in the future will be able to pay their debt off with shorter repayment plans.
 
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I saw an article...
http://www.amsa.org/AMSA/Homepage/About/Committees/StudentLife/TuitionFAQ.aspx

If it's true that tuition is on average only 3% of an institution's revenue... why do institutions increase it every year in a poor attempt to squeeze more money out of us, even if it won't even begin to cover operating expenses..


Because the federal government will fund loans for said tuition rates at any cost of attendance for medical students (good long run investments for the gov.), and there is a ton of demand (ie. applicants) every year. As you said, medical schools don't make a ton of revenue from tuition, but it is easy to increase tuition rates yearly when you have people willing to pay for it.
 
The amount forgiven under IBR will be treated as taxable income. The only way to avoid this is by working at a non-profit for 10 years. Let's say a doctor leaves medicine directly after med school, or maybe after residency, to work for a for-profit entity. His income tax owed for the year on which his loans are forgiven will be based on his usual income, minus any deductions, plus $200-300k for the loans to be forgiven.

Let's pretend he gets a good job and makes $87.85k/year. He will be taxed whatever he is normally taxed in addition to 28% of $95k and 33% of $5-105k. His income tax owed for that year will increase by $28-61k. The amount owed is likely much greater as I'm not factoring in accrued interest on $200-300k in loans at 7.9% interest (Grad PLUS rates.)

The IRS will get blood from a stone, too. The IRS failure to pay penalty is 0.5% of the owed tax for each month the tax is not paid in full. Want to ignore that? Your wages will be garnished or maybe they'll throw you in prison. :laugh:

This is all speculation until the first discharge under the 25 year plan takes place, the law will probably change many times between now and then. Also IRS debt can be discharged in bankruptcy a lot easier than student loan debt.
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/opinion/29bach.html?_r=0

What about a plan similar to this (came out in 2011)? Make medical school FREE for all students (~2.5 billion). Reduce or eliminate specialist residency pay. (Not sure if this will include COL either in school or residency training). Considering that most of our real tuition is either subsidized by the government, grants, research funding, and hospital care... why not just eliminate it altogether?
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/opinion/29bach.html?_r=0

What about a plan similar to this (came out in 2011)? Make medical school FREE for all students (~2.5 billion). Reduce or eliminate specialist residency pay. (Not sure if this will include COL either in school or residency training). Considering that most of our real tuition is either subsidized by the government, grants, research funding, and hospital care... why not just eliminate it altogether?

Even if you pay all specialties the same amount of money, there needs to be an incentive for doing a longer residency. A 5 year surgery residency vs a 3 year FM residency is 2 years of lost income.
 
They are not paying the specialties the same amount of money. Specialties will still make more when they come out. Just during residency the suggestion was to take their stipend and use it to help defray tuition costs.
 
Enjoy being poor by yourself. I'd prefer not to get robbed by the system while pretending to be a saint.

Doctors aren't poor. Even if you take a doctor making 120k and after paying taxes and loans is only making 40k, then that doctor still wouldn't be considered poor.

I highly doubt that there is any attending whos net income is only 40k though but it just proves even in an extreme example that doctors are not poor.

If you want to say doctors deserve more, then okay,but doctors are not poor though.

Maybe you need 200k or more to be happy. I don't. If I did I would have gone into business.

I'm hardly a saint. I don't pretend not to like money. If a petition came up to raise doctors pay, then I'd sign it. I however, dont think I deserve more just for being a doctor. The market is driven by the people. If people really felt strongly enough about doctors deserving more money then they could just not enter medicine. The fact that they do still enter medicine is proof that they think the salary is satisfying enough.
 
Throwing out random numbers isn't an example of anything and only serves to show how little you understand about the costs of running an office. You don't feel like you deserve anything because you haven't sacrificed anything.
 
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ex-finance, but ok

Doing what? "Finance" is incredibly broad. For all I know you could have been selling mortgages for $35k/year. Fact remains that there are very few pathways to $175k/year in "finance" and they all require advanced degrees (quant finance), connections or ivy league pedigree (ibanking), or luck (trading.)
 
Doctors aren't poor. Even if you take a doctor making 120k and after paying taxes and loans is only making 40k, then that doctor still wouldn't be considered poor.

I highly doubt that there is any attending whos net income is only 40k though but it just proves even in an extreme example that doctors are not poor.

If you want to say doctors deserve more, then okay,but doctors are not poor though.

Maybe you need 200k or more to be happy. I don't. If I did I would have gone into business.

I'm hardly a saint. I don't pretend not to like money. If a petition came up to raise doctors pay, then I'd sign it. I however, dont think I deserve more just for being a doctor. The market is driven by the people. If people really felt strongly enough about doctors deserving more money then they could just not enter medicine. The fact that they do still enter medicine is proof that they think the salary is satisfying enough.

I see you haven't even started medical school yet.
Do us a favor and leave this thread; put in enough blood, sweat, and tears to land AOA at your medical school; graduate; and then do 1 year of residency. Come back in 2018 and tell us if you still feel the same way.
 
Thank God I can live at home and attend med school.

You couldn't pay me enough to live at home, especially during med school. Moved out at 18 and never looked back.

I see you haven't even started medical school yet.
Do us a favor and leave this thread; put in enough blood, sweat, and tears to land AOA at your medical school; graduate; and then do 1 year of residency. Come back in 2018 and tell us if you still feel the same way.

Totally reminded me of Alec Baldwin when I read this :)

[youtube]LqeC3BPYTmE[/youtube]
 
Wat? The average yearly tuition is like 30,000. Add about 1,000 to 1,500 for health insurance, and then your daily expenses, and you can actually live on 10,000 a year. Thus, 40,000 a year*4=160,000. The unsubsidized stafford loans will grow at 6.8%, so it's about 170,000 when you graduate med school.

You make 40,000 in residency and if you live on the same 10,000 a year (yes, very feasible if you dont' spend money on cable tv, booze, smartphone, etc), you have 30,000 left. Pay ~12,000 so your loans don't grow on the initial 170,000 debt and you have 18,000 left. Invest 6,000 of it in your ROTH IRA and you have 12,000 left, which you can apply towards your loans or invest.
Your arithmetic, sir, is reprehensible. Two things in life are certain: death and taxes. You're ignoring one of them. Living on $10K/year is also laughable. If you plan to delay your life/family until you're 35, then that might be an option, but I got kids to feed.

You have a lot of choices, you can live in a 1,000 apartment/month place, lease a BMW 3 series car, spend 50 bucks each weekend on drinks, and buy a 2,500 MacBook Pro. It's your choice, but don't complain about the loans then.
I don't owe $500K or anything close to it (with interest, nearing the end of PGY-3, I'm right around $200K), but I did nothing like what you're suggesting, except that my one bedroom apartment was $900/month.
 
You have no idea what you're talking about. I've argued this point dozens of times before and I've had former i-bankers agree with me: unless you have a degree from HPY/MIT/Stanford or unless you have an amazing connection, you're not getting the type of finance job that can pay you $175k/year by the time you're 32 -- you know, the kinds of salaries a physician can earn in the lowest paying and least competitive specialties.
You picked the median salary for all physicians of all ages in all specialties. You may want to adjust down if you're claiming that's the "lowest paying salary in the least competitive specialty, attainable right out of residency."
 
I have no idea how people are expecting to live on 10k/year in medical school/residency
Many/most of them aren't including the vehicle they were given, the abundance of college roommates, the vacations their parents pay for, the cell phone plan their parents pay for, the insurance their parents pay for, the free gym membership the college includes, blah blah blah.

I never see a resident/attending discussing finances like this.

You can squeak by on Ramen for a few pennies a day for a bit, but eventually it's a good idea to eat healthy, the way we tell our patients to. It costs even more when you're feeding a family. I spent just over $5000 on groceries last year, and that's with coupons, discount shopping chains, and not including the $700 I spent on baby formula (Target brand, bulk discount, coupons).

Marry a sugar momma, duh lol.
That's what I did.
 
You picked the median salary for all physicians of all ages in all specialties. You may want to adjust down if you're claiming that's the "lowest paying salary in the least competitive specialty, attainable right out of residency."

Specialist salaries are on the order of $250-300k per year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics gives FM (without obstetrics) as $190k/year. The split between the number of practicing specialists and primary care physicians is about 60:40. I'm no mathematical genius, but if 60% are making an average of $250-300k/year and the other 40% are making an average of $190k/year, I'm pretty sure the average for all physicians of all ages in all specialties is going to be higher than $175k/year. As for $175k/year being unattainable for a new attending fresh out of residency...I really doubt it.

But please, continue to play martyr. I'm sure every physician could have been unimaginably wealthy. Wall Street firms would love to snatch up Poduk U graduates!
 
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You make 40,000 in residency and if you live on the same 10,000 a year (yes, very feasible if you dont' spend money on cable tv, booze, smartphone, etc)

$833 a month...

at least $600 of that will be rent, unless you don't mind moving across the hall from the traphouse.

$200 of that will be utilities.

So for the rest of the month you'll have $33.. I guess you could buy one of those 24-packs of Ramen noodles from Costco and throw some chunks of imitation crab meat in there... but you won't be able to get to work because you won't have any gas :( ..you wont be able to pay your car insurance either. The hospital pager will be your only means of communication because you'll run out of minutes on your Net10 prepaid phone. If you need furniture you could just steal it from the hospital... no no it's cool.. nobody's looking or anything. Spraypaint them a cool neon color, so when people visit your bachelor pad... it has that futuristic look to it :thumbup:
 
Throwing out random numbers isn't an example of anything and only serves to show how little you understand about the costs of running an office. You don't feel like you deserve anything because you haven't sacrificed anything.

So you are saying there are doctors out there with a net salary of 40k or less? I assume thats a real rarity.

And yes, I haven't sacrificed anything yet but I have seen how hard people have to work just make ends meet and I'm talking making 30k a year. I grew up in a town where a large amount of people are below the poverty line. I know people who work 3 jobs just to earn enough to buy groceries, support their family and live in a ****ty apartment.

I just think a fair amount of you guys have no idea how tough it really is for a lot of poor Americans and how many people wish they earned even 50k.

I'm not saying that physicians don't deserve more. And I think the cost of medical school is ridiculous. But don't try to pretend that physicians have it really bad. Medicine is still a stable career path with a good amount of money in it.

Maybe I'll grow bitter through medical school and residency but I don't really think so.
 
$833 a month...

at least $600 of that will be rent, unless you don't mind moving across the hall from the traphouse.

$200 of that will be utilities.

So for the rest of the month you'll have $33.. I guess you could buy one of those 24-packs of Ramen noodles from Costco and throw some chunks of imitation crab meat in there... but you won't be able to get to work because you won't have any gas :( ..you wont be able to pay your car insurance either. The hospital pager will be your only means of communication because you'll run out of minutes on your Net10 prepaid phone. If you need furniture you could just steal it from the hospital... no no it's cool.. nobody's looking or anything. Spraypaint them a cool neon color, so when people visit your bachelor pad... it has that futuristic look to it :thumbup:

I lol'd
 
$833 a month...

at least $600 of that will be rent, unless you don't mind moving across the hall from the traphouse.

$200 of that will be utilities.

So for the rest of the month you'll have $33.. I guess you could buy one of those 24-packs of Ramen noodles from Costco and throw some chunks of imitation crab meat in there... but you won't be able to get to work because you won't have any gas :( ..you wont be able to pay your car insurance either. The hospital pager will be your only means of communication because you'll run out of minutes on your Net10 prepaid phone. If you need furniture you could just steal it from the hospital... no no it's cool.. nobody's looking or anything. Spraypaint them a cool neon color, so when people visit your bachelor pad... it has that futuristic look to it :thumbup:

Just live in your car in the hospital parking lot. :thumbup:
 
I see you haven't even started medical school yet.
Do us a favor and leave this thread; put in enough blood, sweat, and tears to land AOA at your medical school; graduate; and then do 1 year of residency. Come back in 2018 and tell us if you still feel the same way.

You're right. Perhaps through the eyes of a resident, I will view this topic different. I'm not saying doctors dont work hard and dont deserve a good amount of money for what they do. Like I said before if there was a petition or a doctors union to try to gain higher wages, I would totally support it. I just don't see all the doom and gloom that people in this thread are talking about.

Doctors are not poor. Perhaps there wages are low for the type of work they do but they are not poor.

People should at least keep the debate rational.

Also no one is forced into medical school debt. If someone feels like the debt is worth it, I think they hardly have room to complain about it.
 
Also no one is forced into medical school debt. If someone feels like the debt is worth it, I think they hardly have room to complain about it.

Tuition inflation apologists have a special place in hell.
 
You're right. Perhaps through the eyes of a resident, I will view this topic different. I'm not saying doctors dont work hard and dont deserve a good amount of money for what they do. Like I said before if there was a petition or a doctors union to try to gain higher wages, I would totally support it. I just don't see all the doom and gloom that people in this thread are talking about.

Doctors are not poor. Perhaps there wages are low for the type of work they do but they are not poor.

People should at least keep the debate rational.

Also no one is forced into medical school debt. If someone feels like the debt is worth it, I think they hardly have room to complain about it.

Do you also believe that "no one is forced into undergraduate debt. If someone feels like the debt is worth it, I think they hardly have room to complain about it" even with the recent increases in tuition and the de facto need to have a bachelor's degree to obtain entry-level positions?
 
Specialist salaries are on the order of $250-300k per year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics gives FM (without obstetrics) as $190k/year. The split between the number of practicing specialists and primary care physicians is about 60:40. I'm no mathematical genius, but if 60% are making an average of $250-300k/year and the other 40% are making an average of $190k/year, I'm pretty sure the average for all physicians of all ages in all specialties is going to be higher than $175k/year. As for $175k/year being unattainable for a new attending fresh out of residency...I really doubt it.
Obviously.

http://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/physicians-and-surgeons.htm

Physicians and Surgeons: 2010 Median Pay: This wage is equal to or greater than $166,400

Or this: http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/06/17/how-much-do-rookie-doctors-make-the-latest-scorecard/ -

Internal medicine: $150,000 to $165,000 – up 10%
The lowest starting salary in 2008 was for pediatricians — $132,500

Peds, FM, and IM are all enormous specialties that have a pretty big impact on the total. Plus, the numbers you cite are for full-time employees, which is changing as more women enter the physician workforce.

But please, continue to play martyr. I'm sure every physician could have been unimaginably wealthy. Wall Street firms would love to snatch up Poduk U graduates!
Don't be a jerk, and don't put words in my mouth. Did I say that? No. You were posting factual inaccuracies, and I corrected them. You don't hesitate to do the same every time someone says you can make a bazillion dollars in IB.
 
Do you also believe that "no one is forced into undergraduate debt. If someone feels like the debt is worth it, I think they hardly have room to complain about it" even with the recent increases in tuition and the de facto need to have a bachelor's degree to obtain entry-level positions?

It depends. My undergrad debt is 3k and I didn't receive any financial assistance from my family to pay for tuition, I was lucky enough to get grants and pay the rest with a job, and smart enough to go to a cheap state school. I think if most people are smart they can graduate college with very little debt. If someone chooses to go to an ivy school and pay the high price of tuition then yea they certainly weren't forced into that debt. People also need to be smart about what majors they are going to take before putting tons of loans into it.

If you really want to talk about doom and gloom then you can focus on law schools. When medical school gets to that point then I will indeed start being scared.
 
Tuition inflation apologists have a special place in hell.

:thumbup:



But don't worry guys, allowing for-profit medical schools to receive full accreditation will not make this problem any worse. The League of Hopeful For-Profit Medical Schools assures us that!
 
Wat? The average yearly tuition is like 30,000. Add about 1,000 to 1,500 for health insurance, and then your daily expenses, and you can actually live on 10,000 a year. Thus, 40,000 a year*4=160,000. The unsubsidized stafford loans will grow at 6.8%, so it's about 170,000 when you graduate med school.

You make 40,000 in residency and if you live on the same 10,000 a year (yes, very feasible if you dont' spend money on cable tv, booze, smartphone, etc), you have 30,000 left. Pay ~12,000 so your loans don't grow on the initial 170,000 debt and you have 18,000 left. Invest 6,000 of it in your ROTH IRA and you have 12,000 left, which you can apply towards your loans or invest.

Now, if you have a private school college debt that was 160,000, then in most cases it was your choice to attend the school instead of a cheaper one.

You have a lot of choices, you can live in a 1,000 apartment/month place, lease a BMW 3 series car, spend 50 bucks each weekend on drinks, and buy a 2,500 MacBook Pro. It's your choice, but don't complain about the loans then.

So while you're in med school, what imaginary place are you living in with your $10k a year?

Last I checked, 10k/year is about 833 a month? Even at 350/month for rent, 100 utilities, 20-30 for a cell phone, ??? for transportation (if you don't live close to med school), 125 (max) for the bogus insurance amount you claim, and FOOD?

Similarly in residency... 40k in residency. I don't suppose you remembered to take out taxes? Pretty sure that 10k you're claiming is going to be after taxes.

No one's balling out of control but your numbers are, to be Frank, are bogus.
 
Just live in your car in the hospital parking lot. :thumbup:

Efficient, that cuts commuting costs down to zero. Similarly, one could buy a Ford E350 van and charge our fellow students rent per-row. Now we're talking about profits! :thumbup:
 
I know, right? The audacity of wanting to be justly compensated for a decade of higher education and training -- it's simply ridiculous! They should consider themselves lucky to even be alive, to even feel the relentless pressure of half a million dollars in nondischargeable loans.

Totally despicable human beings...thinking that they deserve more than the drug addict down the street...silly people
 
I'm happy to fork over any debts to the tuition apologists on here :))) :naughty:
 
LOL. Definitely in the running for top post of 2013.

I hardly see how saying no one is forced into med school debt is a tuition apologist.

I specifically didn't apply outside of Texas for the very reason that tuition is ridiculously expensive for OOS.

Sure some people aren't fortunate enough to live in a state with good med schools and have to go OOS, but its up to them to decide if the debt is worth the reward. If they accept the debt because medicine is the career they want, then I don't want to hear people whining about it.

Its that simple. No one enters medical school oblivious to the fact that they will spend a large amount of time not making money and a lot of years paying back their debts.
 
You can eat very well (single) on 150/month. Buy on sale, fruits, veggies, cereal, etc. No Ramen here. You can always find deals for housing. I paid 400/month for rent close to school while classmates picked places that were *marginally* nicer for 900/month. Utilities were included, except for internet (20/month) and electricity (40/month) Choices you make...

I'm Asian, we're much more frugal (generally) than Americans.

No way I could do 150/month.

Maybe 300/month.
 
No, it's not. It depends on your personal situation--if you have a family and kids, yes, you will obviously have more debt accrued. However, you would have had to support your family if you hadn't gone to medicine anyways.

If you are attending a school that costs 30,000 a year for tuition and you are single, you should NOT have 500,000 of debt after 4 years.

Taxes are roughly, depending on state taxes and your income, about 40% for a doctor. So if you make 200,000-250,000 as an attending, it is roughly 120,000-150,000 net. Amortize the 200,000 initial loan debt over 20 years with 20,000 in yearly payments, and it is not too bad. Obviously, it still sucks but thems the rules.

Well, when you have lived in places without running water, electricity, and widespread malaria, you appreciate basic things like food, shelter, and even the internet.

If somebody is happy buying a 1.5 million dollar house and a brand new 5 series BMW costing 50,000, that's their prerogative. But they shouldn't bitch about not having money saved. I'm not saying this is you, just in general. Plus, buying stuff on sale really cuts down on costs.

Insurance? Malpractice? Office overhead if you're private? At this point are you still single or have you had a family?

I think the OP of this thread had COA of 80k (tuition is 57k + 4-5% / year), full loans. I'm facing a similar situation, where I have to take out full COA in loans, as my family wouldn't qualify for financial aid. 80k over 4 years. plus interest, plus 4 years of piss poor payments as a resident.
 
Well THAT explains a few things.

:rolleyes:

You are missing the point..

Everyone who is planning to attend medical school knows or should know what they are in for. Its going to be up to them to decide if the debt is worth the reward.

I mean anyone who plans on taking out 600k of loans is just asking for trouble. If they decide to risk it, I don't think it should be a big shock if they end up having trouble repaying it.

This whole debate got side tracked anyway. I never once apologized for tuition rates. They are what they are, and its up to prospective students to decide if its worth it.

My original point was to all the people saying doctors are entitled to wealthy earnings. I simply think its kind of shocking how many people think being a doctor entitles you to wealth. If I enjoy my career and have enough money to support a family, then that is all I need. It doesn't matter if I make the same as my neighbor working as a manager at Walmart or the same as the CEO of Fortune 500 company, if I have those two things, then I will be happy.
 
This what I DID do for the first two years of med school. I actually lived on...9,000 or 9,500/year. FYI, our school insurance was 1,400/year and it was a great cadillac plan. For an individual to get comparable coverage, it would be about 2,500. I'm in a much cheaper place than CA, but still an average cost state. In CA, it is probably like 200 more per month for rent.

Rent: 400.
Utilities+internet:60
Food:150
Phone:40
Health Insurance:115
Total:765.
(I biked to school, it was a few miles away)

If you have a family, obviously, your expenses will be much higher. But your wife may be providing an additional income source.

If you make 40K as a resident, you will be paying tiny taxes. Standard deduction for 2013=6100
Personal exemption, etc.

And I eat a LOT and very well. You can have a 2,500 macbook pro, 500 dollar ipad, cable tv, 100 dollar/month phone plan, etc, etc but that is your CHOICE

So how many roommates did you live with? If you didn't live with a roommate you don't live in an "average cost state". You live in rural Indiana.

Also, if you haven't figured it out, biking to the hospital doesn't work out so well as a third year or a resident.
 
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