This is absolutely true. Also, on AVERAGE, lets say a person went to their state school undergrad, then their state school for med school. They'll be making a lot of money in private practice with very little debt. Also, after talking to MD student friends at Harvard (some were MD/PhD), they say that since many Harvard grads actually go to top residencies (which ironically pay less) and end up in research and academia (either clinical work in teaching hospital or a LOT of lab work), those who graduate from state schools actually have higher salaries due to the places they work in. I mean, if you think about it, the purpose of the big schools like Hopkins and Harvard is to produce researchers (that's what they want in their applicants the most and it's the researchers who are 'leaders') but researchers just don't make as much as those practicing privately.