co$t of education??--no, for real, this is interesting!

[josehernandez94]

so I've frequently heard that even at private schools, we pay much less in tuition than our education actually costs. this statement bewilders me. however, assuming it's true, here are my questions:

1. what, exactly, makes the education cost so much?
2. if we're only paying a small fraction of it through the cost of tuition, who pays for the rest?

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[AverageMan]

Where public schools have the state to subsidize education, private schools have their endowment. States can subsidize their schools more because they have more resources than even the most wealthy schools with the multi billion endowments. The cost of med school I would imagine is the same (every school has a gross anatomy lab with basically the same equipment, basically the same histology lab equipment) so the overall cost is similar before this subsidizing, which is where state schools can afford to offer more money towards it than private schools.

 

[josehernandez94]

averageman,

i appreciate the response, but my question still wasn't really answered... what is inherent to the actual education that makes it so expensive? maintenance of the facilities? paying the salaries of the faculty/administration? something else?

over on the allopathic thread, someone estimated that at a private school, the tuition a student pays is ~10% of the total that is spent on his/her education--using this rough approximation, at a private school, where the cumulative tuition over 4 years figures to be ~$130,000, then the cost of the education is upwards of $1 million--how in the world does a medical student's education cost that much??! where does all that money go?

sorry if this is a stupid question, maybe I'm just naive?

 

[josehernandez94]

is the liability insurance THAT expensive??

 

[AverageMan]

Are there any references that you can cite for this >$1,000,000 figure? I know med school was more expensive than we realized, but getting an education for 10% of its worth borders on ludricrous I think. I'm sure that value has to be lower.

 

[dstn2bmd]

medical schools cost are supported by the research grants that are awarded to faculty. For example, in order to do research you need 60K well the institution you do research for will take approximately 80K. That leaves you -20K so, they ask for 140K/year in order to deal with this. I heard this I was so angry...geez 80K per investigator! Add that up and then your like dam* THAT is alot of money!

Heb

 

[japhy]

I found this article this past week in the Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/edlife/1109WIT.html
Take a look under the mutlimedia section on the right side of the page.

They focused on U of Maryland and showed where all of the expenses arise. I realize this is for an institution as a whole, but it was interesting to see where the money is being spent.

The single biggest expense is faculty tuition, which is probably where it should be. At least when I think of what makes a university shine it has to be the faculty.

 

[josehernandez94]

thanks a lot jalphy, appreciate it

 

[johncunningham]

Part of that "cost" that people like to refer to in the education of medical students can be thought of in terms of lost revenue.

Examples...

ordering extra studies/labs for "teaching" cases

lost physician/hospital revenue during teaching hours

In any event, I think that it is mostly a lod of crap that it costs my hospital a million dollars to provide my education. There are more than 200 students here, and I can asure you that the hospital is not spending 200 million dollars a year on the education of its students.