Am I completely NUTS?

[montessori2md]

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I'm 26, I have a 2 year old, I want to go to med school. Right. We live in VA just north of dc right now, the cost of living is pretty high (not LA or SF high, but high). For me to send my son to school while I go to school and keep our (teeny tiny) house and provide no income, we are going to have to go really seriously into debt. Even the public med schools are charging 28,000 a year here, and then there's childcare, which a bunch of schools (UVA, for one) say can't always be included in your loans. My one possible hope is UMD, which is more affordable.

I'm still a couple of years out from applying, because 1) I was a Spanish/history major and need science classes and 2) I have a teaching contract I need to finish out this year.

Has anyone else DONE this? How bad is it? Should we just plan on selling the house? I have at least one year of classes to take before I start, so that's $150,000 for med school plus one year, that means the loan limits I've been reading (our bank says it's 189,000 total) will only cover my tuition -no childcare, no living expenses.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

I'm 26, I have a 2 year old, I want to go to med school. Right. We live in VA just north of dc right now, the cost of living is pretty high (not LA or SF high, but high). For me to send my son to school while I go to school and keep our (teeny tiny) house and provide no income, we are going to have to go really seriously into debt. Even the public med schools are charging 28,000 a year here, and then there's childcare, which a bunch of schools (UVA, for one) say can't always be included in your loans. My one possible hope is UMD, which is more affordable.

I'm still a couple of years out from applying, because 1) I was a Spanish/history major and need science classes and 2) I have a teaching contract I need to finish out this year.

Has anyone else DONE this? How bad is it? Should we just plan on selling the house? I have at least one year of classes to take before I start, so that's $150,000 for med school plus one year, that means the loan limits I've been reading (our bank says it's 189,000 total) will only cover my tuition -no childcare, no living expenses.

that 189,000 loan limit is just for staffords -- you can still get private loans beyond that. i borrowed about $45k for law school, so i'll have to go beyond that, too, but i don't think it's a huge issue. basically, just be comfortable assuming lots of debt. i know it's not a great answer, but it's what lots of us are facing. can your husband earn enough to pay childcare costs? if so, that'd be great. if not, you might have to explore options like selling your house. don't know -- it's not crazy, though.

 

[QofQuimica]

OP, you have the next couple of years to go to any state in this country and establish residency there before you apply. When you have completed your contract, would you consider moving to a state that would be friendlier to your aspirations? I'm guessing you're a pre-school teacher, and if so, you should be in demand everywhere nationwide. If I were in your position, and I didn't have to stay in VA for medical school for some reason that you didn't mention, I would look into moving to Texas. They have seven med schools there, the cost of living is low, and their tuition is incredibly cheap for residents, like $6500 per YEAR. Florida might also be a good option for you. The tuition is more here vs. TX, about $19k per year, but we also have several schools (six if you count the two DO schools), and we recently passed a state amendment mandating voluntary preschool, so you'd probably be able to get a job here easily. One other benefit of living in either of these two states is that neither of them charges state or local income tax, meaning yet more savings for you. Of course, the caveat is that you will have to take a huge risk and sell your house, quit your job, move somewhere new, and find a new house and new job and new schools for you and your son to attend. But if you can stomach it, doing this would solve a lot of your problems. Just something kind of wild and crazy that I thought I'd throw out there for you to think about. 😉

 

[blee]

I live in northern VA, and I'm pretty certain that this year's in-state tuition estimates range from roughly $21,000 (EVMS) to $24,000 (UVA, VCU). Of course, that's not all that cheap either. It helps somewhat that the costs of living in any of those three cities are far less than are near D.C.

 

[JIKJen124]

While we are throwing states out there, I might also recommend Ohio - another land of seven (if you include the DO school) med schools. I can speak from a bit of experience here. When I decided to go back to school, I was living in DC myself. My non-trad aspirations are for vet school, so I knew I needed to get to a state and firmly establish residency in a state with a vet school. (As you may or may not know, it's insanely difficult to get into vet schools out of state, as there are only 4 private ones - the rest state funded). Even though I certainly LOVED DC, I made the decision to suck up my pride, move back home with my parents in Cincinnati, and start school here. I'm about 10 months from starting my application process. I'm saving a ton of money by postbaccing without living expenses (except gas, coffee and snacks). Also, I know I will avoid quite a bit of debt by being instate when I apply to vet school.

Another strategy might be to start taking your classes part-time (many schools offer the prereqs in the evenings). That way you could still work, have income and be working your way to med school at the same time.

Just some food for thought.

Oh, and don't worry if you think you're nuts for doing this - I'm a firm believer that you'd have to be nuts to do what we're doing. But didn't we think the pre-meds were nuts when we were History majors? I know I did...

I live in northern VA, and I'm pretty certain that this year's in-state tuition estimates range from roughly $21,000 (EVMS) to $24,000 (UVA, VCU). Of course, that's not all that cheap either. It helps somewhat that the costs of living in any of those three cities are far less than are near D.C.

 

[AusMeds]

We sold our house, primarily because who knows where we will be for residency and thereafter. Also, who knows where the real estate market will be in 6+ years? The last thing we wanted to end up with was $200K in student loans AND a real estate correction that lowered the value of our house to below the value of our mortgage. Of course, the market could go up - but it could also go south. So we decided - why assume all that risk when we can simply buy another house. So, we cashed in!

Of course, our daughter's first few years were spent in that house with tons of memories and moving day was really sad - but as they say, you can have anything you want in life, you just can't have everything you want. So, we kept our daughter and sold the house 🙂

BTW, you're not crazy!

 

[njbmd]

Hi there,

The are private loans outside of the federal loan limits. Do beware that these loans might have to be paid back during residency when your income is very low(most residency salaries are in the high 30s to start). There are also scholarships that can also lower your cost of tuition. If your grades are pretty good, you might be surprised at what you can qualify for. You just have to be very proactive and bug the financial aid office.

You might have to sell you house but depending on where you move, you might end up doing that anyway. Housing in Charlottesville is very, very expensive (DC levels). Richmond is a bit better but you will generally live further out.

While housing in OH, is cheap to start with, housing values do not increase as well as in the DC areas. I have a good friend who made a huge profit on his Charlottesville house only to find that housing in the Cleveland market is pretty flat in terms of building equity.

No matter where you live, you are going to take a hit in terms of lifestyle if you are the principle breadwinner and you are out of the income market for four years of medical school and at the lower end of the income market for three to seven years of residency. That being said, some places are better to live than others thus you might choose where you want to attend medical school based on this. OH has multiple medical schools in multiple cities with different housing markets.

njbmd 🙂

 

[montessori2md]

Thanks all for your advice : ) I think we're sort of considering "all of the above"

My husband is well paid as a chef here, which is one of the reason's I'm trying to avoid moving -we could, say relocate to MD and he could still be in easy reach of work (Crystal City area, for those of you who know the area), and Montessori teachers (yep, I'm at the preschool level) aren't typically all that well paid whereever they work -we're in demand, but parents can only afford so much tuition!

I totally agree with both the cost of living and the building equity arguments, which is part of my problem -we could move to OH (our families are there, I attended OSU for my BA) so easily, cashing in all that equity, but then how much $$$ would we lose over the next 6 years? All odds are that in the DC area, housing prices will at least be stable, and in that time, what the heck is gonna happen to the interest rates? What would our rate be if we had to buy a house then?

I do wonder if it's a pipe dream to believe that I could stay in the area for residency, which is one of the reasons I was thinking I should just start preparing my husband to move anyhow.

Also got some good info from mommd.com, FYI 🙂

 

[blee]

I dunno. I'm not a big fan of moving for the sole purpose of establishing residency. Particularly for non-trads, there are lots of reasons to stay -- social networks, familiarity with the area, etc. I do expect to move for med school, but prospectively moving before even thinking about applying to that area's schools seems a little risky to me. Still, I can see why someone would want to do it.

 

[montessori2md]

Hey Blee, how was your post-Bacc? Did it do more for you than just improve your GPA?

 

[blee]

Hey Blee, how was your post-Bacc? Did it do more for you than just improve your GPA?

My postbac did improve my grades. It also helped me to get strong references from some recent professors, and it incidentally led me to my current job during my swing year. I also have my postbac to thank for getting me interviews this season, and things are looking really good for me.

I owe most of my pre-med success to my postbac program. It was expensive as all hell (particularly when one adds up all of the costs -- lost income, etc.) but I know I had zero chance before I did it. Now, I think I have more than a fair chance.

 

[Beau Geste]

i don't get how a public school can cost $28,000 a year? Don't you pay for that in your taxes?