Grad PLUS and decision to apply

[penn_pal]

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Hi,

Economics researcher here. I hope that some of you might be willing to give me some insights about the effect that the presence of grad PLUS had on their decision to apply or on their decision of which school to apply to.


Try to imagine yourself in world without grad PLUS, with annual Stafford borrowing limit of $38,500 and aggregate Stafford borrowing limit of $189,125 (i.e. let's travel back in time to the pre-2006 days). Would you have had to finance a large portion of your medical education with private loans? Would your choice of which school to apply to be affected? Coming from a low-income family, would you have delayed applying to med school by one year because your practice MCAT were not where they needed to be to get accepted into a top 20 school with generous need-based grants?

Any insight will be appreciated. Thanks

P.S. If some pre-2006 prospective applicants area are still around, insights on the opposite situation of how you might have done things differently in a world with grad PLUS are equally useful.

 

[darkjedi]

if GradPLUS loans didn't exist a good majority of applicants would not be able to afford med school. Schools would probably recognize that and either do everything they can to keep tuition as close to stafford max as possible or risk losing out on many students. Med school would likely mostly just be for those who are upper middle class or higher.

No one trusts private loans and for good reason, they tend to have awful terms and typically unfavorable for those expecting to enter residency. I know zero people that would even contemplate taking out private loans for med school.

 

[knv2u]

if GradPLUS loans didn't exist a good majority of applicants would not be able to afford med school. Schools would probably recognize that and either do everything they can to keep tuition as close to stafford max as possible or risk losing out on many students. Med school would likely mostly just be for those who are upper middle class or higher.

No one trusts private loans and for good reason, they tend to have awful terms and typically unfavorable for those expecting to enter residency.

You mean sort of like it is now with the expensive application fees, travel fees, lodging/meals for interviews, etc.?

P.S. I don't disagree with what you wrote.

 

[knv2u]

And to the original poster, I think it might also be interesting to research how income and other resources affect medical school applications for the reasons stated in post #3.