DOs have more debt? U.S.News says yes

[Whatsamatta U]

Can anyone tell me why 8 of the top 12 medical schools, MD and DO, whose graduates leave with the most debt are DO schools? This is from USnews' 2007 report. And, in case you want to know, the number one school is TUCOM-CA with an average of $182,000. Yikes!

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[UserNameNeeded]

And the numbers the colleges keep track of for their own purposes (and report to US News & World Report, for example) are just the amount of money students actually borrowed and were certified by the schools-- that doesn't factor in the accruing/compounding interest on unsubsidized loans, nor private student loans that don't need to be school-certified.

 

[dr.z]

Can anyone tell me why 8 of the top 12 medical schools, MD and DO, whose graduates leave with the most debt are DO schools? This is from USnews' 2007 report. And, in case you want to know, the number one school is TUCOM-CA with an average of $182,000. Yikes!

I guess most of them are private.

 

[laboholic]

Yes, out of the 23 or so DO schools, only about 4 or so are public (cheaper tuition). Easy as that.

 

[azdoc09]

Can anyone tell me why 8 of the top 12 medical schools, MD and DO, whose graduates leave with the most debt are DO schools? This is from USnews' 2007 report. And, in case you want to know, the number one school is TUCOM-CA with an average of $182,000. Yikes!

You could probably make that 10 out of 12 if you add azcom and ccom (~40K per year for tuition), both of which don't report data to USNews. The hilarious thing about this is that the AOA is doing all it can to force DO students into family medicine (~100K annual salary). Maybe they should exercise some oversight and think about some type of solution here.

 

[Buckeye(OH)]

There is a simple solution.

Live like a student now, or live like a student later.

Half way through my medical education, my debt (before interest, obviously) will be 77k.

I anticipate 165k total loan amount when I graduate, plus, the interest, obviously.


I don't think its going to be unmanageable.

 

[n0chi]

yea 180000/4 = 45000 per year.. which will cover just tuition and books at most places. most people have to get even more money privately...

its expensive... but hopefully its all worth it in the long run.
cheers.

 

[MD-To Be]

Can anyone tell me why 8 of the top 12 medical schools, MD and DO, whose graduates leave with the most debt are DO schools? This is from USnews' 2007 report. And, in case you want to know, the number one school is TUCOM-CA with an average of $182,000. Yikes!

Majority of Osteopathic schools are private.

 

[Faraaz23]

Do these numbers reflect the the loans acquired only while in med school, or total loans up until then?

Also, DO schools seem to take more non-traditionals. Generally, even if you have parents who can support you at least partly, they are more likely to do so when you are out of college a year or two versus going back to school at 30 years old. Just a theory.

I don't think DO schools are on a whole expensive than private MD schools though tuitionwise.

 

[Buckeye(OH)]

I don't think DO schools are on a whole expensive than private MD schools though tuitionwise.

Are you kidding me?

 

[Faraaz23]

Are you kidding me?

No, I'm not. I just pulled a random sample of profiles of both from the info at US News.

Creighton 33,520
SLU 38,960
Case Western 37,944
Drexel 36,770
Stanford 38,295
Vanderbilt 33,200
Emory 36,000
NYU 30,625
Harvard 35,800
Howard 22,695
Wash U 39,720
Loyola 34,500

AT Still 33,250
Lake Erie 24,250
Nova 24,320 instate, 32-33,000 out of state
NYCOM- 33,654
Pikeville 28,000
Touro 33,000
Chicago 31,838
Des Moines 30,210

Private for Private, osteos are not generally higher in tuition than allopathics. Except when compared to the predominately minority schools like Howard, Moorehouse, Meharry...they are mostly about the same, sometimes a little less.

Whats disturbing is that I just spent 10 minutes of my last free weekend of my life on this post, I need to get out more...

 

[raidermedic]

Something interesting to look at is the amount of financial aid (outside of loans) private MD schools offer Vs. private DO schools. However I don't know where one would find that data.

 

[Shodddy18]

Majority of Osteopathic schools are private.

You hit the nail right on the head!

 

[laboholic]

I dont see what the big deal is. My debt will be ~250K + undergrad loans when im done... not counting interest. Id take 182K over that any day.

 

[fireclash]

Something interesting to look at is the amount of financial aid (outside of loans) private MD schools offer Vs. private DO schools. However I don't know where one would find that data.

That's what I was thinking. The MD schools just on the whole have more non-loan money to give out than the DO schools.

 

[group_theory]

2003 Report of the American Medical Association – Medical Student Section
Task Force on Medical Student Debt
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/15/debt_report.pdf


"Approximately 40% of allopathic students and 76% of osteopathic students attend private medical schools."


"Indebted students who attended private allopathic and osteopathic medical schools had an average of $123,780 and $136,700, respectively, while indebted students who attended public allopathic and osteopathic medical schools had an average of $91,389 and $103,900, respectively"

 

[Whatsamatta U]

Majority of Osteopathic schools are private.

That doesn't matter. This survey compares all schools, including private MD schools on an individual basis, not MD vs DO as a whole. And what was said earlier is true, MD private schools tuitions don't cost any less than private DOs. So therefore, the only explanations I can think of are that either MD schools give out more free aid or MD students have more "generous" parents...

 

[Lamborghini1315]

No, I'm not. I just pulled a random sample of profiles of both from the info at US News.

Creighton 33,520
SLU 38,960
Case Western 37,944
Drexel 36,770
Stanford 38,295
Vanderbilt 33,200
Emory 36,000
NYU 30,625
Harvard 35,800
Howard 22,695
Wash U 39,720
Loyola 34,500

AT Still 33,250
Lake Erie 24,250
Nova 24,320 instate, 32-33,000 out of state
NYCOM- 33,654
Pikeville 28,000
Touro 33,000
Chicago 31,838
Des Moines 30,210

Private for Private, osteos are not generally higher in tuition than allopathics. Except when compared to the predominately minority schools like Howard, Moorehouse, Meharry...they are mostly about the same, sometimes a little less.

Whats disturbing is that I just spent 10 minutes of my last free weekend of my life on this post, I need to get out more...

Some of the tuition fees are totally wrong for osteopathic schools that you mentioned. I suppose you talking from like few years ago..coz now nycom's tuition is something like 42k and living expenses can be around 15-20k. Yes, it's very obvious that osteopathic schools leave a higher debt than allopathic..but that's the sacrifice one needs to make for ultimately becoming a doctor via the osteopathic route.

 

[DOnut]

Some of the tuition fees are totally wrong for osteopathic schools that you mentioned. I suppose you talking from like few years ago..coz now nycom's tuition is something like 42k and living expenses can be around 15-20k. Yes, it's very obvious that osteopathic schools leave a higher debt than allopathic..but that's the sacrifice one needs to make for ultimately becoming a doctor via the osteopathic route.

I just graduated from NYCOM. Unless their tuition jumped more than $9000 in one year, tuition is no where near $42,000. It's more like ~33K (tuition) plus or minus a little. Living expenses, like you said, will be extra.

 

[Buckeye(OH)]

well, ccoms is 40k now....not the quoted 31k

 

[USArmyDoc]

I just graduated from NYCOM. Unless their tuition jumped more than $9000 in one year, tuition is no where near $42,000. It's more like ~33K (tuition) plus or minus a little. Living expenses, like you said, will be extra.

When I interviewed at NYCOM, the total tuition including fees was $46,000. That allowed me to cross it off the list reallll quick.

 

[Lamborghini1315]

When I interviewed at NYCOM, the total tuition including fees was $46,000. That allowed me to cross it off the list reallll quick.

there you go thanx army doc. lot of the people seem to be talking from info that is no longer applicable. The tuition rates have increasingly gone up with DO schools esp. Speaking just of Nycom ...apparently they have a policy of increasing their tuition by some uknown percentage every year.

 

[MacGyver]

The answer to this thread is that MD schools are MUCH more generous in giving out grants than DO schools are.

A typical MD student gets HALF his total cost paid by school grants. In DO schools its rare for them to give out half grants to cover costs.

Part of the reason is that MD schools have longer histories (in general), much larger alumni bases, and much more alumni that give funds to the MD programs to fund scholarships.

 

[Vox Animo]

DO school are raking in the profits. 40K per student in tuition, but pay out 0 or close to it for the third and fourth year. Which to me means, that would still make a profit if they cut tuition in half.


Hell, most doctors 15-20 years ago would pay off their debt in 6 or less years. Our generation is looking at 15-20.

If you are living on all loans, there is only so much you can cut back. for me, m1 is 60K in loans total. minumum 240K + 20K undergrad. However, this assumes tuition won't be taking 2-5K jumps every year.

Would anyone do all this to be a FP and make 80-90K a year?

Even so, it seems that it is what we have to endure to reach our dream.
I want to be a doctor that bad.

 

[CatsandCradles]

Creighton 33,520
SLU 38,960
Case Western 37,944
Drexel 36,770
Stanford 38,295
Vanderbilt 33,200
Emory 36,000
NYU 30,625
Harvard 35,800
Howard 22,695
Wash U 39,720
Loyola 34,500

AT Still 33,250
Lake Erie 24,250
Nova 24,320 instate, 32-33,000 out of state
NYCOM- 33,654
Pikeville 28,000
Touro 33,000
Chicago 31,838
Des Moines 30,210
WVSOM 17,000-18,000 instate, 45,000 out of state

I added my school WVSOM. All the public O schools really are harsh on out of staters. MSU-COM is pretty high in out of state tutition too. And at Ohio, they make you sign a 5 year contract to stay in Ohio after residency!

Boy do I envy all those in-staters. However the cost of living is really low where I am at though.

Almost half my class is instate. The other half is from Texas, Michigan, and PA. And we do have people from Alaska! Can you imagine that? I still can't seem to get over the fact that we have people from Alaska

 

[UserNameNeeded]

Wow. TCOM only charges a little less than 20K for out-of-staters and guarantees them all $6,000 in Perkins loans. In-staters don't have that guarantee, and if there's funds available, get only $4,000 max. And in-state tuition is $14K.