Got in, but EXPENSIVE! Should i go?

[PushupsForAll]

Okay...so long story short. always wanted to be a doctor blah blah blah.
22 year old now graduated w/ 3.6 in bio, 497 score. didnt get in the first time applying with my 495 score. Now recently got into a DO program.

Was super excited, so happy that all my hard work paid off, all my student loans from college were worth it blah blah. owe about 70k right now with interest.

my school starts next coming fall but i am faced with a horrendous dilemma. My program will cost me 80k a year, tuition is like 50k and the rest is for living expenses like rent food supplies and that kind of stuff. I have done the math and after i graduate after 4 years. my total compounded total w/ interest and principal from both DO program and undergrad will be about 564K (that's A LOT). like 3,500-5,000 a month per monthly payment.

i really want to be a doctor. literally college was mostly "work hard get into med school". Right now i am facing this problem of not knowing whether or not this is a good idea. I can always try to apply again after another year as i'm still working as a chief scribe at a hospital and always apply w/ more experience. I just cannot wrap my head around how much money i am taking out and how much I will be paying out. loans for college were kinda crazy when i was taking them out but 320k just for PRINCIPAL?!?!?! Like i said i do really want to be a doctor and im note even talkign about the whole "studying for 8 years, and lack of social life" thing, but i dont even know how the hell i would even be able to make payments without working like 60-80 hours a week and not making money until im like 40....and i am not in the interest of starting living and enjoying life at the age of 40. sacrificing living life until 32 is already a sacrifice in itself.

anyway. I'd like some insight. I am correct to be concerned about this or is really just not a big deal as i am making it out to be? Bottom line is, I wanna be a doc, but not enough to end up making like an average profited salary of like only 50-60k /year after residency is over. Let me know what you guys think. all opinions welcome, but please do not say something distasteful. I'm really lost and don't know what to do.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[DelayedGratification]

Look into pubic service scholarships or military HPSP

If you want to become a physician, do NOT give up the medical school acceptance. Loans will be able to be paid off.

 

[Balo]

I heard that living expenses will depend on how frugal/ financially creative you are, so what your actual living expenses end up being won't necessarily be the estimate that the school gave you.

There are loan forgiveness programs if you don't mind being a bit altruistic when you finally become a doctor; Google is your friend.

Congratulations that you got in; it's ultimately up to you whether you pursue your dream or give it up. Personally, I don't think you should give it up, but again, that's at your discretion.

 

[PushupsForAll]

Look into pubic service scholarships or military HPSP

If you want to become a physician, do NOT give up the medical school acceptance. Loans will be able to be paid off.

looked into military, not for me. i know loans will be paid off. it's more about actually being to live my life and not "get by" with working 70+ hours and paying back loans w/ like no money left after each month. You know what i mean? obviously no one knows the future, but im clearly naive about the possibility of the future as I am only 22.

 

[IslandStyle808]

looked into military, not for me. i know loans will be paid off. it's more about actually being to live my life and not "get by" with working 70+ hours and paying back loans w/ like no money left after each month. You know what i mean? obviously no one knows the future, but im clearly naive about the possibility of the future as I am only 22.

You can also moonlight during residency to help keep the loans down. And depending on the field you are in and where you live can also negotiate with hospitals to pay some of your loans. Plus being 22 puts you in a far better position to earn more later in life. I don't believe it will take you till your 40s to pay it all off.

 

[johhnybravo]

Worst case:

5000 a month for loans
1500 a month for a small apartment
200-300 for a cheap car per month
100-200 for car insurance per month
100 phone per month
60 good internet per month
120 food per month

I think I got most of the necessities.

Add whatever you want for having fun.

Total = 7280 a month on the high end

Needing a take home of 87360 per year.

Pretty sure this is doable as a physician. You’ll be paying for awhile but it’s not impossible. I say go for it if you want to be a doctor more than anything. If this was my only option I’d do it.

Good luck! Hope it works out for you.

 

[PushupsForAll]

120 for food per month?!?!? try that per week if youre not trying to go poptarts 24/7. but anyway thanks for that, not a bad break down honestly.

 

[johhnybravo]

120 for food per month?!?!? try that per week if youre not trying to go poptarts 24/7. but anyway thanks for that, not a bad break down honestly.

Haha, you just gotta work on them shopping skills! 3 of us in our apartment eat really,really well on 200 a month. I’m talking well cooked meals pretty much nightly. Pro tip, only buy what’s on sale at the store!

 

[JudgeIsInTheHouse]

Haha, you just gotta work on them shopping skills! 3 of us in our apartment eat really,really well on 200 a month. I’m talking well cooked meals pretty much nightly. Pro tip, only buy what’s on sale at the store!

$200 a month for food is realllllllly cutting it close.

 

[johhnybravo]

$200 a month for food is realllllllly cutting it close.

I’m guilty of not mentioning the few times we spend extra money to order out. Orange chicken is my weakness.

 

[JudgeIsInTheHouse]

I'm trying to think of how one can make food extremely cheap.

Perhaps, oatmeal in the morning and then just buying uncooked chicken breasts in bulk to make for lunch and dinner. Throw in rice and microwave cooked veggies, and you got yourself a cheap and absolutely miserable diet that you can do over and over and over and over . . . . .

 

[ciestar]

Look into PAYE and REPAYE.

 

[dushash]

Okay...so long story short. always wanted to be a doctor blah blah blah.
22 year old now graduated w/ 3.6 in bio, 497 score. didnt get in the first time applying with my 495 score. Now recently got into a DO program.

Was super excited, so happy that all my hard work paid off, all my student loans from college were worth it blah blah. owe about 70k right now with interest.

my school starts next coming fall but i am faced with a horrendous dilemma. My program will cost me 80k a year, tuition is like 50k and the rest is for living expenses like rent food supplies and that kind of stuff. I have done the math and after i graduate after 4 years. my total compounded total w/ interest and principal from both DO program and undergrad will be about 564K (that's A LOT). like 3,500-5,000 a month per monthly payment.

i really want to be a doctor. literally college was mostly "work hard get into med school". Right now i am facing this problem of not knowing whether or not this is a good idea. I can always try to apply again after another year as i'm still working as a chief scribe at a hospital and always apply w/ more experience. I just cannot wrap my head around how much money i am taking out and how much I will be paying out. loans for college were kinda crazy when i was taking them out but 320k just for PRINCIPAL?!?!?! Like i said i do really want to be a doctor and im note even talkign about the whole "studying for 8 years, and lack of social life" thing, but i dont even know how the hell i would even be able to make payments without working like 60-80 hours a week and not making money until im like 40....and i am not in the interest of starting living and enjoying life at the age of 40. sacrificing living life until 32 is already a sacrifice in itself.

anyway. I'd like some insight. I am correct to be concerned about this or is really just not a big deal as i am making it out to be? Bottom line is, I wanna be a doc, but not enough to end up making like an average profited salary of like only 50-60k /year after residency is over. Let me know what you guys think. all opinions welcome, but please do not say something distasteful. I'm really lost and don't know what to do.

Short answer is absolutely go for it and don't even think twice!

Here's a bit longer answer: Each year you postpone your med.school - it's equivalent of losing a 1 year of attending salary - let's take a simple IM internist salary of $200k.
Also, keep in mind starting IM salary is about $190-220k depending on location. Now add to that yearly bonuses (What? You didn't know about it? Well now you do lol) - they are about $30k on average. Add to that easy extra shifts you can take - each shift roughly $1.5-2k (trust me you will end up taking some extra shifts, even if you don't want it - as your colleages and your boss may and will ask you to cover for them from time to time). Some people make extra $10k per month just with extra shifts. Yep. And let's assume you worked for 4 years as an attending - guess what happens next? Your salary gets increased by another $30k. I'm too lazy to calculate all this total - but trust me - you will be more than fine. I've yet to see a single attending in US/Canada who lives poorly


P.S. I forgot to add - all that nonsense about $200 on food and such - forget about it - I can bet you will spend more and live just fine

 

[lovehate]

Short answer is absolutely go for it and don't even think twice!

Here's a bit longer answer: Each year you postpone your med.school - it's equivalent of losing a 1 year of attending salary - let's take a simple IM internist salary of $200k.
Also, keep in mind starting IM salary is about $190-220k depending on location. Now add to that yearly bonuses (What? You didn't know about it? Well now you do lol) - they are about $30k on average. Add to that easy extra shifts you can take - each shift roughly $1.5-2k (trust me you will end up taking some extra shifts, even if you don't want it - as your colleages and your boss may and will ask you to cover for them from time to time). Some people make extra $10k per month just with extra shifts. Yep. And let's assume you worked for 4 years as an attending - guess what happens next? Your salary gets increased by another $30k. I'm too lazy to calculate all this total - but trust me - you will be more than fine. I've yet to see a single attending in US/Canada who lives poorly


P.S. I forgot to add - all that nonsense about $200 on food and such - forget about it - I can bet you will spend more and live just fine

Exactly!
If you wait a year (assuming you will get accepted in the next cycle which starts in 2 months) you will waste at least 200k. Lets say you now make 30k. 200-30= 170k. That's already almost half your loan. It will not be easy but it's certainly payable.

Without retaking the MCAT, it's almost impossible to get into a US MD school with 497. Are you ready to retake it this summer and apply in June?

 

[dushash]

Also, if I may couple of words about living on $200 for food. As a future doctor - you want to be healthy and stay strong. You need to have both clear mind and good physical endurance and strength. I can understand living frugally until you are in residency, but please don't save on your health. I've heard similar thoughts about living on a ramen lol - but 100% of those who tell such things - they change their minds after residency lol. People come out of residency like they are born again - completely different persons. More mature and wise. They don't talk silly stuff like that. All this talk is among premeds mostly lol.

You'll earn enough money to take care of yourself, your loved ones and your patients.

 

[PushupsForAll]

Exactly!
If you wait a year (assuming you will get accepted in the next cycle which starts in 2 months) you will waste at least 200k. Lets say you now make 30k. 200-30= 170k. That's already almost half your loan. It will not be easy but it's certainly payable.

Without retaking the MCAT, it's almost impossible to get into a US MD school with 497. Are you ready to retake it this summer and apply in June?

absolutely not haha.

 

[lovehate]

If you cook at home $200-300 are enough for food for a single person.

 

[lovehate]

absolutely not haha.

Then stop having these thoughts and doubts and enjoy your last summer before med school.

 

[wholeheartedly]

If you cook at home $200-300 are enough for food for a single person.

its worth noting food pricing is pretty dependent on where you live.

granted I'm currently living in town with a very unique situation, but food here is stupid expensive. for example a bag of regular red seedless grapes (not organic) was just shy of 7 bucks the other day.

most people aren't going to be dealing with that level of crazy, but things can vary quite a bit from place to place. so saying someone should be able to get by on x for groceries for a month might be a bit ill-informed.

 

[dillydilly2]

Haha, you just gotta work on them shopping skills! 3 of us in our apartment eat really,really well on 200 a month. I’m talking well cooked meals pretty much nightly. Pro tip, only buy what’s on sale at the store!

you must be on a permanent cutting diet? Permabulk over here

 

[RNthenDoc]

You don’t need 30k/year for living expenses unless you are in a particularly expensive area. Definitely get a roommate and do what you can to cut that back. (One of my residents recently told me he allotted 15k/year and was just fine through Med school)

Also, you have months before class starts... you could start working weekends to chip away at that undergrad principle.

 

[Futurecareerinmedicine]

I agree with RNthenDoc, you still have until August until you start. Are you working currently? If not, I would try to find a job, so you could start saving up some money. I think that would help and least for living expenses, etc.
But you should definitely go, because once your accepted you might not get that opportunity again.

 

[cliquesh]

Exactly!
If you wait a year (assuming you will get accepted in the next cycle which starts in 2 months) you will waste at least 200k. Lets say you now make 30k. 200-30= 170k. That's already almost half your loan. It will not be easy but it's certainly payable.

Without retaking the MCAT, it's almost impossible to get into a US MD school with 497. Are you ready to retake it this summer and apply in June?

You're forgetting about taxes. You'll end up paying close to 40-50% in taxes. Additionally, there are other costs you'll need to consider like good disability insurance, for instance, which is around $5k per year.

I know a few people (MDs and DOs) who have 500k+ debt. They pay around 5k a month towards their loans. They all manage just fine. They, however, all make at least $360k before any bonuses (extra call, being part of a hospital committee, etc.). Some of them are not investing much, if any, money, though.

I think being a PA (or some other similar role) is a better option for many people.

 

[cliquesh]

You can also moonlight during residency to help keep the loans down. And depending on the field you are in and where you live can also negotiate with hospitals to pay some of your loans. Plus being 22 puts you in a far better position to earn more later in life. I don't believe it will take you till your 40s to pay it all off.

Just to let you know not all residencies allow you to moonlight. Additionally, not all hospitals pay the same. My wife would make around 1k for a 24/hrs ICU shift. I didn't get paid anything extra. Something to consider when ranking residencies if this a concern for you.

 

[wontonsoup]

Short answer is absolutely go for it and don't even think twice!

Here's a bit longer answer: Each year you postpone your med.school - it's equivalent of losing a 1 year of attending salary - let's take a simple IM internist salary of $200k.
Also, keep in mind starting IM salary is about $190-220k depending on location. Now add to that yearly bonuses (What? You didn't know about it? Well now you do lol) - they are about $30k on average. Add to that easy extra shifts you can take - each shift roughly $1.5-2k (trust me you will end up taking some extra shifts, even if you don't want it - as your colleages and your boss may and will ask you to cover for them from time to time). Some people make extra $10k per month just with extra shifts. Yep. And let's assume you worked for 4 years as an attending - guess what happens next? Your salary gets increased by another $30k. I'm too lazy to calculate all this total - but trust me - you will be more than fine. I've yet to see a single attending in US/Canada who lives poorly

P.S. I forgot to add - all that nonsense about $200 on food and such - forget about it - I can bet you will spend more and live just fine

Exactly!
If you wait a year (assuming you will get accepted in the next cycle which starts in 2 months) you will waste at least 200k. Lets say you now make 30k. 200-30= 170k. That's already almost half your loan. It will not be easy but it's certainly payable.

Without retaking the MCAT, it's almost impossible to get into a US MD school with 497. Are you ready to retake it this summer and apply in June?

I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but this is all terrible advice. 564K with interest is going to look something like over a million dollars in 10 years. Just the interest payments will be over 3000 monthly. This is a crushing amount of debt, the likes of which it is almost impossible to manage unless you have an income in the 300K+ pre-tax range. The wisdom I always heard was only take on debt equal to 2x your final yearly salary -- this applies to undergrad majors, as well as grad school. As a DO who is probably going into primary care (I'm just being realistic extrapolating that MCAT score to COMLEX/STEP), you will almost certainly not make enough money to stay afloat without an additional revenue stream. Keep in mind the budget breakdown given by the person above is for a single person and you will have to live like this for decades of your life. Do you want to settle down at some point? Have a wife and buy a house? 2 kids and a dog? That will be almost impossible with this kind of debt.

It seems so far you are only getting yes-men to reply, but I cannot emphasize enough how much of a poor decision this looks like to me. There is something called the sunk-cost fallacy: just because you have put a lot of time/money/effort into something, doesn't mean that it is a good idea to keep investing in this. Unless you can find another school acceptance which offers much less debt, I would strongly reconsider going to med school.

Being a doctor is a nice job, but it's not ruin-the-rest-of-your-life nice.

 

[PastorDoc]

Take the acceptance and run OP! You’ll have the time to chip away at the loans. If your main dream is to be a physician, the temporary burden of debt and sacrifice is less annoying than that of constant regret.

 

[Mad Jack]

Okay...so long story short. always wanted to be a doctor blah blah blah.
22 year old now graduated w/ 3.6 in bio, 497 score. didnt get in the first time applying with my 495 score. Now recently got into a DO program.

Was super excited, so happy that all my hard work paid off, all my student loans from college were worth it blah blah. owe about 70k right now with interest.

my school starts next coming fall but i am faced with a horrendous dilemma. My program will cost me 80k a year, tuition is like 50k and the rest is for living expenses like rent food supplies and that kind of stuff. I have done the math and after i graduate after 4 years. my total compounded total w/ interest and principal from both DO program and undergrad will be about 564K (that's A LOT). like 3,500-5,000 a month per monthly payment.

i really want to be a doctor. literally college was mostly "work hard get into med school". Right now i am facing this problem of not knowing whether or not this is a good idea. I can always try to apply again after another year as i'm still working as a chief scribe at a hospital and always apply w/ more experience. I just cannot wrap my head around how much money i am taking out and how much I will be paying out. loans for college were kinda crazy when i was taking them out but 320k just for PRINCIPAL?!?!?! Like i said i do really want to be a doctor and im note even talkign about the whole "studying for 8 years, and lack of social life" thing, but i dont even know how the hell i would even be able to make payments without working like 60-80 hours a week and not making money until im like 40....and i am not in the interest of starting living and enjoying life at the age of 40. sacrificing living life until 32 is already a sacrifice in itself.

anyway. I'd like some insight. I am correct to be concerned about this or is really just not a big deal as i am making it out to be? Bottom line is, I wanna be a doc, but not enough to end up making like an average profited salary of like only 50-60k /year after residency is over. Let me know what you guys think. all opinions welcome, but please do not say something distasteful. I'm really lost and don't know what to do.

Interest accrues but does not compound while in school. It will compound once at graduation then cease compounding once you enter REPAYE during residency. Make sure to take this into account with your calculations. Furthermore, while in REPAYE, all payments that do not cover accrued interest cut the remainder of interest in half, so if you paid $500 but the total interest was $22,500, thus you have a net interest accrued of $22,000, that amount will be halved to $11,000, as an example. I'm not saying what to do, that's up to you.

 

[PushupsForAll]

I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but this is all terrible advice. 564K with interest is going to look something like over a million dollars in 10 years. Just the interest payments will be over 3000 monthly. This is a crushing amount of debt, the likes of which it is almost impossible to manage unless you have an income in the 300K+ pre-tax range. The wisdom I always heard was only take on debt equal to 2x your final yearly salary -- this applies to undergrad majors, as well as grad school. As a DO who is probably going into primary care (I'm just being realistic extrapolating that MCAT score to COMLEX/STEP), you will almost certainly not make enough money to stay afloat without an additional revenue stream. Keep in mind the budget breakdown given by the person above is for a single person and you will have to live like this for decades of your life. Do you want to settle down at some point? Have a wife and buy a house? 2 kids and a dog? That will be almost impossible with this kind of debt.

It seems so far you are only getting yes-men to reply, but I cannot emphasize enough how much of a poor decision this looks like to me. There is something called the sunk-cost fallacy: just because you have put a lot of time/money/effort into something, doesn't mean that it is a good idea to keep investing in this. Unless you can find another school acceptance which offers much less debt, I would strongly reconsider going to med school.

Being a doctor is a nice job, but it's not ruin-the-rest-of-your-life nice.

i think you misunderstood. 564k was the total amount in my balance which means principal plus compounded interest (which apparently doesn't compound only accrues as we have just learned from another post here). as in the principle would be 320k for med school total and about 60k for UG, total to ~380k. (still a lot). i think that million dollars will only apply if i make minimum payments and i definitely plan on paying more.

 

[aladdin11]

how are your living expenses 30k a year???

 

[LebronManning]

Are you a URM? I'm just curious because of acceptance with a 497.

 

[PushupsForAll]

If it helps here are my expenses:
Tuition: $58K + small little grant they giving me of like 5800.
Housing (living in their appt complex with all utilities paid for) - $10,500/year
Mandatory insurance: $2500/per semester
Plus those small little lab fees and a med kit, looking at like $69,000 for basics....then comes food and everything else.

hopefully that will help explain why im in such a pickle regarding how much is needed to be taken out.

 

[PushupsForAll]

URM

no i am not. im a white male from west coast. a lot of research XP, volunteering, shadowing, scribing. great letters of rec.

 

[PushupsForAll]

also my program is relatively newer. when i start they will have their 3rd years in place.

 

[LebronManning]

no i am not. im a white male from west coast. a lot of research XP, volunteering, shadowing, scribing. great letters of rec.

Oh gotcha. Congrats! I think you should definitely go. You may never get this opportunity again and med school ALWAYS pays for itself with physician salaries. What med school is this btw?

 

[PushupsForAll]

how are your living expenses 30k a year???

scroll a few comments up , made a post forgot to tag your quote in it

 

[Driven_Docta]

Okay...so long story short. always wanted to be a doctor blah blah blah.
22 year old now graduated w/ 3.6 in bio, 497 score. didnt get in the first time applying with my 495 score. Now recently got into a DO program.

Was super excited, so happy that all my hard work paid off, all my student loans from college were worth it blah blah. owe about 70k right now with interest.

my school starts next coming fall but i am faced with a horrendous dilemma. My program will cost me 80k a year, tuition is like 50k and the rest is for living expenses like rent food supplies and that kind of stuff. I have done the math and after i graduate after 4 years. my total compounded total w/ interest and principal from both DO program and undergrad will be about 564K (that's A LOT). like 3,500-5,000 a month per monthly payment.

i really want to be a doctor. literally college was mostly "work hard get into med school". Right now i am facing this problem of not knowing whether or not this is a good idea. I can always try to apply again after another year as i'm still working as a chief scribe at a hospital and always apply w/ more experience. I just cannot wrap my head around how much money i am taking out and how much I will be paying out. loans for college were kinda crazy when i was taking them out but 320k just for PRINCIPAL?!?!?! Like i said i do really want to be a doctor and im note even talkign about the whole "studying for 8 years, and lack of social life" thing, but i dont even know how the hell i would even be able to make payments without working like 60-80 hours a week and not making money until im like 40....and i am not in the interest of starting living and enjoying life at the age of 40. sacrificing living life until 32 is already a sacrifice in itself.

anyway. I'd like some insight. I am correct to be concerned about this or is really just not a big deal as i am making it out to be? Bottom line is, I wanna be a doc, but not enough to end up making like an average profited salary of like only 50-60k /year after residency is over. Let me know what you guys think. all opinions welcome, but please do not say something distasteful. I'm really lost and don't know what to do.

Aa basically a bunch of people before me have mentioned on this thread and every other similar thread: take the acceptance.

There's no guarantee that you'll be accepted for the next cycle, especially not with your MCAT. In addition, each year as an attending will bring you in at least $200k. As a result, taking the acceptance this year will cut your debt from 500k-300k (theoretically) vs postponing an extra year and finding a school that's slightly cheaper and still ending up with $400k in debt. $300k in debt is much better than $400k and you get to live out your dream of being a physician a whole year earlier. Win-win situation!

TLDR: no reason to postpone and risk never becoming a physician.

 

[LebronManning]

In addition, each year as an attending will bring you in at least $200k. As a result, taking the acceptance this year will cut your debt from 500k-300k (theoretically)

This is a great point and one my physician father really hammers home to every one. Every gap year you take you are losing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in attending salary down the road.

 

[Goro]

Okay...so long story short. always wanted to be a doctor blah blah blah.
22 year old now graduated w/ 3.6 in bio, 497 score. didnt get in the first time applying with my 495 score. Now recently got into a DO program.

Was super excited, so happy that all my hard work paid off, all my student loans from college were worth it blah blah. owe about 70k right now with interest.

my school starts next coming fall but i am faced with a horrendous dilemma. My program will cost me 80k a year, tuition is like 50k and the rest is for living expenses like rent food supplies and that kind of stuff. I have done the math and after i graduate after 4 years. my total compounded total w/ interest and principal from both DO program and undergrad will be about 564K (that's A LOT). like 3,500-5,000 a month per monthly payment.

i really want to be a doctor. literally college was mostly "work hard get into med school". Right now i am facing this problem of not knowing whether or not this is a good idea. I can always try to apply again after another year as i'm still working as a chief scribe at a hospital and always apply w/ more experience. I just cannot wrap my head around how much money i am taking out and how much I will be paying out. loans for college were kinda crazy when i was taking them out but 320k just for PRINCIPAL?!?!?! Like i said i do really want to be a doctor and im note even talkign about the whole "studying for 8 years, and lack of social life" thing, but i dont even know how the hell i would even be able to make payments without working like 60-80 hours a week and not making money until im like 40....and i am not in the interest of starting living and enjoying life at the age of 40. sacrificing living life until 32 is already a sacrifice in itself.

anyway. I'd like some insight. I am correct to be concerned about this or is really just not a big deal as i am making it out to be? Bottom line is, I wanna be a doc, but not enough to end up making like an average profited salary of like only 50-60k /year after residency is over. Let me know what you guys think. all opinions welcome, but please do not say something distasteful. I'm really lost and don't know what to do.

There are plenty of posts about paying off student debt...so even though you'll be in debt to the tune of four Teslas, it seems that once you're in practice, even in PC, you'll be able to pay that debt off.

The wise @HomeSkool has a particularly useful looking post on the subject.

 

[RNthenDoc]

There are plenty of posts about paying off student debt...so even though you'll be in debt to the tune of four Teslas, it seems that once you're in practice, even in PC, you'll be able to pay that debt off.

The wise @HomeSkool has a particularly useful looking post on the subject.

I’m going to use the Tesla as a unit of monetary indebtedness from now on (instead of using as a unit of magnetic flux density, which I hope I never have to discuss again).

“Man, this tuition is almost 1.2 Tesla’s/year!”

 

[dushash]

I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but this is all terrible advice. 564K with interest is going to look something like over a million dollars in 10 years. Just the interest payments will be over 3000 monthly. This is a crushing amount of debt, the likes of which it is almost impossible to manage unless you have an income in the 300K+ pre-tax range. The wisdom I always heard was only take on debt equal to 2x your final yearly salary -- this applies to undergrad majors, as well as grad school. As a DO who is probably going into primary care (I'm just being realistic extrapolating that MCAT score to COMLEX/STEP), you will almost certainly not make enough money to stay afloat without an additional revenue stream. Keep in mind the budget breakdown given by the person above is for a single person and you will have to live like this for decades of your life. Do you want to settle down at some point? Have a wife and buy a house? 2 kids and a dog? That will be almost impossible with this kind of debt.

It seems so far you are only getting yes-men to reply, but I cannot emphasize enough how much of a poor decision this looks like to me. There is something called the sunk-cost fallacy: just because you have put a lot of time/money/effort into something, doesn't mean that it is a good idea to keep investing in this. Unless you can find another school acceptance which offers much less debt, I would strongly reconsider going to med school.

Being a doctor is a nice job, but it's not ruin-the-rest-of-your-life nice.

Dude, what are you talking about lol? I'm a MSII and forgot how to calculate already (mcat was 3 years ago), but here's a very simple math that will put an end to this thread. It's a one line math only:
average IM salary of $200k multiplied by years of OP is going to work (let's assume he works till 65yo) = around $7 million dollars (without ANY bonuses, REPAYE programs, salary increases, etc). Even if he gets to repay his debt over 30 years and it will become a $1 million, OP will still make $6 million (take mortage, 4 teslas, etc and you are still $4-5 million ahead). In reality OP will earn a lot more

And no, he won't have to live decades to repay his debt. I'm kinda busy right now with exams and Step 1 prep - do I have to spoon fed you - I hope you can figure it out yourself why I'm absolutely correct lol

/thread

 

[cliquesh]

Dude, what are you talking about lol? I'm a MSII and forgot how to calculate already (mcat was 3 years ago), but here's a very simple math that will put an end to this thread. It's a one line math only:
average IM salary of $200k multiplied by years of OP is going to work (let's assume he works till 65yo) = around $7 million dollars (without ANY bonuses, REPAYE programs, salary increases, etc). Even if he gets to repay his debt over 30 years and it will become a $1 million, OP will still make $6 million (take mortage, 4 teslas, etc and you are still $4-5 million ahead). In reality OP will earn a lot more

And no, he won't have to live decades to repay his debt. I'm kinda busy right now with exams and Step 1 prep - do I have to spoofed you - I hope you can figure it out yourself why I'm absolutely correct lol

/thread

You'll pay around 40% in tax (federal and state), so post tax $120k is more realistic.

Also, do as many practice questions as you can if you want a high score.

 

[IslandStyle808]

Just to let you know not all residencies allow you to moonlight. Additionally, not all hospitals pay the same. My wife would make around 1k for a 24/hrs ICU shift. I didn't get paid anything extra. Something to consider when ranking residencies if this a concern for you.

Correct, it depends on the residency and the area and some program will allow moonlighting only after a certain year (PGY-2 or PGY-3). Moonlighting rates also varies on hospital or practice (more often than not the worst rates I've seen on here were from the hospital that one is doing the residency program).

For the negotiations, the hospitals may not even be willing to pay off loans also in certain specialities. So that is also there as well.

 

[trev5150]

PEOPLE

Don't forget to start saving for retirement ASAP. 5.5K a year into IRA's (max contribution for under 50 - after tax contribution) and 18.5K a year into that 401K or 403B (before tax contribution - lowers your take home capice? - again max that ish out). Then, if you plan to have kids and you want them to go to college at all, you need to start saving for it now, because they're not getting a dime of grant money because you make too much.

 

[Darkness2018]

Okay...so long story short. always wanted to be a doctor blah blah blah.
22 year old now graduated w/ 3.6 in bio, 497 score. didnt get in the first time applying with my 495 score. Now recently got into a DO program.

Was super excited, so happy that all my hard work paid off, all my student loans from college were worth it blah blah. owe about 70k right now with interest.

my school starts next coming fall but i am faced with a horrendous dilemma. My program will cost me 80k a year, tuition is like 50k and the rest is for living expenses like rent food supplies and that kind of stuff. I have done the math and after i graduate after 4 years. my total compounded total w/ interest and principal from both DO program and undergrad will be about 564K (that's A LOT). like 3,500-5,000 a month per monthly payment.

i really want to be a doctor. literally college was mostly "work hard get into med school". Right now i am facing this problem of not knowing whether or not this is a good idea. I can always try to apply again after another year as i'm still working as a chief scribe at a hospital and always apply w/ more experience. I just cannot wrap my head around how much money i am taking out and how much I will be paying out. loans for college were kinda crazy when i was taking them out but 320k just for PRINCIPAL?!?!?! Like i said i do really want to be a doctor and im note even talkign about the whole "studying for 8 years, and lack of social life" thing, but i dont even know how the hell i would even be able to make payments without working like 60-80 hours a week and not making money until im like 40....and i am not in the interest of starting living and enjoying life at the age of 40. sacrificing living life until 32 is already a sacrifice in itself.

anyway. I'd like some insight. I am correct to be concerned about this or is really just not a big deal as i am making it out to be? Bottom line is, I wanna be a doc, but not enough to end up making like an average profited salary of like only 50-60k /year after residency is over. Let me know what you guys think. all opinions welcome, but please do not say something distasteful. I'm really lost and don't know what to do.

You are pretty darn lucky to get in with a 497. Din’t Pass it up, but if you are having doubts now, don’t do it.

 

[Cranjis McBasketball]

200K is pretax income, it will be closer to 150K after taxes. OP says that after compounding, his total debt at med school graduation will be 564K. Let's say he wants to minimize his monthly payments and opts to repay over 30 years. (Also, it is probably not a safe bet to count on stuff like REPAYE to reduce your debt burden -- we've already seen it used as a political bargaining chip and it is risky to extrapolate decades out from now.) That is still a whopping $3750/month or 45K/year. That makes his takehome around 100K for the 30 years he is paying off these loans. If he decides to pay it off in 15 years, it comes out to just over $5000/month or 60K/year. I don't know about you, but I don't think trading the entirety of my 20s is worth a <100K salary. What about saving for retirement? Getting a nice house/car? Your spouse/children?

Yes, it's probably possible to survive on a doctor's salary with this much debt; but you shouldn't do something just because it's possible. By almost every standard, this is a terrible financial decision. OP could have a similar income and scope of practice as a PA without hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Frankly, I am baffled by everyone here not even encouraging OP to think twice.

Which doctors are only making 200k pre-tax?

 

[PushupsForAll]

You are pretty darn lucky to get in with a 497. Din’t Pass it up, but if you are having doubts now, don’t do it.

Not so much doubts...im sure i can handle the workload. It's more about the financing my life. I want to be a doctor....but like not enough to be enslaved to working 60-80 hours like for the rest of my life only to make like 100k take home. Thats absurd, and even doctors i know agree it's absurd.

The reality is that all these numbers are just #'s and dont represent any real life situation. I just dont know what 320k even looks like so taking it out is worrisome in the long run.
Which is why im here to get more insight into what reality actually looks like with this much money being taken out.

A lot of people here assume in going to be PCP because im going DO, which like really annoying even to hear because idk ehat field ill end up in. But i plan to be a part of pharma, patho, and a clinician in my career as they all are in my scope of interest. Otherwise my specialty interests are Sports med, immuno/allergy, rheum, cardio, and patho.

 

[Magus5454]

Im going to have to borrow about that, to me, im going to pursue my dream, its worth it.

Look at it this way, every year you put it off is a year lost of attending salary at the end of the career, not the beginning

 

[PushupsForAll]

~200K pretax is the median income for internal medicine, family medicine, and pediatrics (& probably some others) according to the 2018 Medscape Physician Compensation report.



Yes, I assumed you were going to be a PCP. I'm sorry if it bothered you, but I am trying to paint as realistic a picture for you as possible -- a DO makes it much harder to match into competitive, more highly-compensated fields. All of the fields you listed, with the exception of cards, make around the same amount as PCPs do. May I ask what DO school you have been accepted to?

I don't think you are accurate here. Plenty of DO's are specialists.maybe not as many but i completely disagree with the idea that DO automatically implies w/ becoming a PCP.

 

[Cath Up]

$200 a month for food is realllllllly cutting it close.

I think the "cooking meals every night" probably helps. I could do $200/mo easy if I planned/cooked all my meals.

 

[Yhorm the Giant]

Hey this thread is perfectly in line with my 2 day long panic attack last week!!! My problem is that I REALLY want to do FM, but man alive, paying off these loans on that 200k, turning into like 120k after taxes, I'm at the same UG debt as you, I'm married, 29, probably kids soon and starting school in July, and my tuition is 5k more a year, and I'll need the full cost of living, especially since I can't really have roommates. Was doing math last week, went into full blown panic realizing I'd be poor for about the next 20 years, assuming I aggressively pay off loans, I'll be doing better than lower middle class by the time I'm 50...
I about lost my mind there for a bit.
There are so many options out there.
Live in a place you don't want for 10 years that pays bank for being rural and pays off loans. If that's what it takes then I'll do it. I feel bad, not being able to locate my family where we want, but that's life. Also other people mentioned bonuses, NHSC, PSLF, extra shifts, hospitals that will help pay off loans. And again, this is all assuming PCP, so if you specialize and make 300k a year, then you'll be in a MUCH better situation obviously. So if you specialize you get more money, PCP you have tons of repayment options.
Sure I'll be living on like 40k for a long time, but with the privilege of being a doctor. Which is my main point. It's no secret, you don't go into being a doctor for the money, you just don't. Those days are gone with how expensive school is now, kinda going the way of dentistry. You do this if you can't imagine doing anything else. If this is your dream and will make you happy. There will be a lot of financial sacrifice, so you have to make sure this makes you happy enough to get through it.

TL;DR
Do it if you really, really love it, there are options.