Many med students come from upper middle class backgrounds. There is a significant number of students whose families can afford to pay part or all of their tuition...or even their entire COA. Talk about having the right parents! When I was in my last year of med school, my neighbor, who was a second year, told me she was one of them. Her parents paid for everything, including a nice new car. I always asked if her parents would like to adopt me as her older sister. I was only half joking. 😛
I am a pretty debt averse person myself. I don't think I'd have gone to med school if I had to take out huge six figure loans for it, or if I had to make some of the financial sacrifices that many of you are making with your jobs, houses, retirement accounts, etc. But I'll be the first to say that I was happy enough in my previous career, and being a doctor wasn't as viscerally important to me as it is to many of you. I wanted to do it, but only on certain terms. It was not my lifelong dream, and I might have still walked away altogether had I gotten in somewhere but the cost of that school were too high. My state schools were cheap enough that I didn't expect it to be an issue, even before I knew that I'd have a full scholarship. But of course there are no guarantees, even for getting into state schools. I was applying for post docs even as I was filling out secondaries, and I would for sure not have made a second attempt to apply had the first attempt not worked out for whatever reason.
Here's what weighed so heavily on me: Med school costs enough that if you take out full loans and decide that doctoring isn't for you after all, it's almost certainly too late to change your mind. Your MD or DO is basically worthless unless you do a residency. Your residency will be miserable if you're doing something you hate because you can't afford to quit, and parts of it will be miserable regardless. All of us fantasize about quitting sometimes. I'm extremely fortunate to be in a position where I could afford to walk into my PD's office tomorrow and say thanks, but I'm outta here. Most people can't. So be mindful of the level of commitment you're taking on when you start down this road, because for most people, there ain't no turning back.
That's me, FWIW. And I kind of subscribe to the view that going to med school is not especially "wise" at any age, even more so for nontrads. But who ever said that wisdom trumps all other considerations in all cases? 🙂
