Affording Tuition & Living Expenses...

[she woolf]

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Damn thank god for Trader Joes and the fact I'm vegan/vegetarian! Seriously you guys living expenses etc, scare me. No pretty dresses and shoes for a l0o0ong time
-_-'

 

[amakhosidlo]

J/W, Does anyone else's budget go up dramatically (~10 grand) during 3rd and 4th year? Is it just because clinicals are expensive to set up or what?

 

[jackson1]

J/W, Does anyone else's budget go up dramatically (~10 grand) during 3rd and 4th year? Is it just because clinicals are expensive to set up or what?

i think partly because it's based on a 12 month budget instead of the 10 month one they use for the first 2 years, partly accounting for residency interview expenses in 4th year.

 

[Practitioner]

But to answer your question, I don't know what the national average is -- but $54k/year is likely on the low end for OOS schools and on the high end for in-state.

Vast majority of out of state schools are 65-70K Total (about 45-50K tuition). I'm from California so it's either a UC or pay that much for out of state schools.
...
54K total is not bad at all.

Yeah, I see. Just looked through the MSAR. National median tuition for OOS and private schools is around $43k for both (residents for private schools are $1k less but that doesn't matter. Ranges are $23k-52k for private and $18-$74k(!) for OOS for tuition, fees + health insurance. 08-09 data. First year only.)

So $54k might be a little on the lower end some places, but its not far from median (assuming $12-13k minimum living expenses).

I'm a little curious to check which public school charges non-residents more than private schools. $25k more!

PS averages are ~$1K from median

 

[caniac]

I don't know if this xls file will end up helping anyone at all or just freaking people out -- it's a very basic, back-of-the-envelope type attempt at predicting annual expenses and an associated loan payment.



DISCLAIMER: I'm a biochem major with a lot of free time and a relatively moderate handle on Excel. I'm still working on the math for working with multiple loans at different interest rates. This file is for personal use. Feel free to try it out or leave it. Constructive criticism is appreciated, but flames are not (though will be expected b/c it's SDN after all)

View attachment Expenses and Loans draft1.xls

 

[Narmerguy]

Now you know why the med students/residents/attendings say they wouldn't do this job for $60K/year.

Yes because only med students/residents/attendings know how much medical school costs. 🙄 Seriously, premeds that often say the whole $60k/year jazz are saying that with the condition that medical school costs are lower. I'm not one of them but I'm equally sick of hearing how only med students/residents/attendings know anything and the rest of us are just smacking our heads against the wall blindly.

 

[pgg]

www.navyhealthcare.com

Most Navy HPSP grads will go directly into a residency they match to and desire to go into.

This is incorrect. Most Navy HPSP grads DO NOT go directly to residency. Either you're deliberately lying or you're inexcusably ignorant.

Everyone - the Military Medicine forum is this way ... anyone with thoughts of applying for a military scholarship should read that board. There are a lot of us there with accurate, current information.

 

[FlowRate]

This is incorrect. Most Navy HPSP grads DO NOT go directly to residency. Either you're deliberately lying or you're inexcusably ignorant.

Everyone - the Military Medicine forum is this way ... anyone with thoughts of applying for a military scholarship should read that board. There are a lot of us there with accurate, current information.

It is the job of recruiters to lie to people. "HPSP Advisors" are just recruiters. Nothing a recruiter tells you is legally binding.

Remember: the more you say something, the more true it becomes. (I forget which book about theory of propaganda that was from)

 

[BigRedDeal]

I don't know if this xls file will end up helping anyone at all or just freaking people out -- it's a very basic, back-of-the-envelope type attempt at predicting annual expenses and an associated loan payment.

DISCLAIMER: I'm a biochem major with a lot of free time and a relatively moderate handle on Excel. I'm still working on the math for working with multiple loans at different interest rates. This file is for personal use. Feel free to try it out or leave it. Constructive criticism is appreciated, but flames are not (though will be expected b/c it's SDN after all)

View attachment 14367

Thanks for the link to the doc. I checked it out and thought it was pretty thorough. The only thing I didn't like was that I couldn't ever things that are one time expenses, like computers, in the yearly column.

 

[GH253]

I was wondering how people manage to afford attending a $25-30,000 state school AND living expenses. Most COM's have a student budget that works out to be $54,000/year! If we actually took out that much in loans I'm sure we'd never move out of a studio apartment, lol. Are guys expecting help from your parents/relatives? Luckily I can live at home if I am accepted to my local COM but even then I would like my own space so I can stay focused but that's another $600+/month...😕

COM? I've never heard that one before, but it must be "something" of medicine.

 

[SusGob711]

COM? I've never heard that one before, but it must be "something" of medicine.

COM stands for College of Medicine

 

[psipsina]

You shouldn't need 25k a year to live in a normal city. If you live in NYC, Boston or Honolulu or something, you will need that much, but if you're living in Detroit or Columbus or Nebraska or any number of other med school locations, you should be able to live off a number that is way less than 25k.

Let's say you want a 1 bedroom in a safe but QUIET (i.e. not the desired area with tons of nightlife) area in your average city. $700 a month. Your landlord pays heat and water, leaving you with just electricity to pay for. You don't run the AC and don't have TV, so you pay $80 electricity and $50 for cable internet. You shop frugally, buying only groceries that are on sale. $150 a month on groceries. You own an older car paid for in full and have $80 monthly basic insurance. You were wise and bought a reliable car with minimum repairs, say you spend $500 a year on those or $41 monthly. It gets 28 MPG. You drive 100 miles a week. Gas is $3 a gallon. You spend $40 monthly on gas. You're lonely in medical school so you buy a cat, spending about $25 a month on food and litter, plus a $100 yearly checkup or $9 more dollars a month. You spend around $50 on miscellaneous household items - cleaning supplies, shampoo, conditioner, etc...I'm a female with a hair, skincare and makeup regimen and it only runs me about $15/month. I take a multi and fish oil and that's only another $10 a month.

$1144 total = $13728 a year. Bump it up to 15k for fun, since the tires will need replacing on that car, and you might want to go see a movie once in a rare while.

Theres more to medschool life than tuition and basic living necessities. There's health insurance (my schools policy is 2k/year). There's books and qbanks and office supplies. There's dress clothes for clinic (which you will have to be ready to replace if body fluids stain them). There's testing fees (I just dropped $1k to sign up to take step 2). You need a parking pass of course and sometimes you'll end up rotating at some distant hospital that boosts your gas budget. You need a laptop during first and second year and you need a smartphone for 3rd and 4th with a data plan and unlimited texting (my attendings and residents text me nonstop). And then there's the convienience $$ - many a day you will be too tired to cook for yourself and you'll order takeout, you'll splurge on a coffee at starbucks with everyone else because you feel like a zombie, you won't be willing to drive out to the cheapest grocery store, you'll pay to ship things to yourself from amazon because you're never out of the hospital when stores are open . . . I'm incredibly frugal (bring my own lunch everyday, shop in thrift stores, try to share textbooks etc) but man it all adds up quick.

I attend LSU-NO. For third year I took out 43k which included an extra 2k to replace a broken laptop. I have needed every penny of it.

 

[Perrotfish]

It is the job of recruiters to lie to people. "HPSP Advisors" are just recruiters. Nothing a recruiter tells you is legally binding.

Remember: the more you say something, the more true it becomes. (I forget which book about theory of propaganda that was from)

The sad thing is that this guy/gal probably hasn't even served. A lot of recruiters, including all of the actual healthcare recruiters, are officers with several years experience and the integrity that implies. I'm not saying that they'll help you to figure out the worst parts of what you're signing onto but they're generally honest to the best of their ability when asked a direct question and won't say anything they suspect to be a lie. The people posting here, though, are generally civilian PR people hired to telemarket on the Navy's behalf and will just lie to your face. I'm disgusted my service is associated with these people.

At least we're better than the army, though: they've been shifting over their enlisted recruiting to civilians entirely.

 

[FlowRate]

The sad thing is that this guy/gal probably hasn't even served. A lot of recruiters, including all of the actual healthcare recruiters, are officers with several years experience and the integrity that implies. I'm not saying that they'll help you to figure out the worst parts of what you're signing onto but they're generally honest to the best of their ability when asked a direct question and won't say anything they suspect to be a lie. The people posting here, though, are generally civilian PR people hired to telemarket on the Navy's behalf and will just lie to your face. I'm disgusted my service is associated with these people.

At least we're better than the army, though: they've been shifting over their enlisted recruiting to civilians entirely.

Wow... I didn't realize that they started contracting out recruiting. That really sucks. I know I've been contacted by army hpsp recruiters several times and I thought they were ~ E5, but I'm probably wrong.

 

[Perrotfish]

Wow... I didn't realize that they started contracting out recruiting. That really sucks. I know I've been contacted by army hpsp recruiters several times and I thought they were ~ E5, but I'm probably wrong.

I think all the officer recruiting is still in house and I know a good chunk of the enlisted side is too, I think that only the Army has any civilians doing actual recruitig (as opposed to just advertising) and even for them its a pretty new thing. It was funny to see the contrast at MEPS (the big medical processing thing you go to when you join the military) between the recruiters who were actually in the Army and the ones who were just hired salesmen. The hired recruiters were all fat, loud, and blatntly refused to follow any of the rules of the processing station, I couldn't imagine a worse example for someone just signing up.