Why are medical schools so expensive?

[combatmedic]

Any idea?

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[relentless11]

Supply and demand, plus for the most part it is very likely you would have the capacity the pay it back.

To some extent it also has to do with the resources you use as a med student. The hospital, clinics, laboratory facilities and materials (e.g.: cadavers, histology, microscopes, etc), maintenance, and various other things that go into school accreditation, blah blah blah. You can probably get a detailed breakdown of how the money is spent if you look around on the school's site.

Most of the resources are used during the first two years, since years 3 and 4 you essentially get to play at the hospital. Therefore you may see tuition drop by a grand or so.

My question is why law school is so expensive. Our program here is only 3 years long but it costs more per year than our med school.

 

[NonTradMed]

Supply and demand, plus for the most part it is very likely you would have the capacity the pay it back.

To some extent it also has to do with the resources you use as a med student. The hospital, clinics, laboratory facilities and materials (e.g.: cadavers, histology, microscopes, etc), maintenance, and various other things that go into school accreditation, blah blah blah. You can probably get a detailed breakdown of how the money is spent if you look around on the school's site.

Most of the resources are used during the first two years, since years 3 and 4 you essentially get to play at the hospital. Therefore you may see tuition drop by a grand or so.

My question is why law school is so expensive. Our program here is only 3 years long but it costs more per year than our med school.

I agree that a lot of the money probably goes to labs, facilities, instructors etc, but as I remember it, don't schools pay the hospital to take on students? So the money goes there too.....

As for law schools expenses....probably the same supply and demand thing. A student who may get a scholarship to a lower tiered law school may have to foot the full $30k at a top tiered school because they figure you would want it more---and also be able to pay it back with your degree.

I do believe schools are expensive in part because they can be. Yes, the tuition goes to education, but I think schools are also willing to shift the cost of education over to students because they know they can. And at our instate med school, they've risen the tuition by several thousand dollars over the course of a few years in part becuase the state cut budget for the school expecting students to make up for it....I guess it's a double whammy of lots of people willing to pay and schools who see their budgets slashed, and you end up with a heck of an expensive education.

 

[Law2Doc]

Any idea?

Resources, infrastructure (lecture halls and labs), cadavers, faculty, insurance (esp during 3rd and 4th year when you will be learning to do stuff in the hospital on real patients).

 

[dopaminophile]

I go to one of the most expensive schools in the country (ehg.. I just threw up a little) and they told us last year that while it may indebt us around $200k or more to get our MD. They didn't go into the details but you can imagine the massive expense of having more faculty than students, extremely expensive clinical education activities, malpractice for the students, administrative junk, etc. I'm sure there are a zillion things that I can't come up with this morning... but once you get to school... it's not tough to imagine. In general, I think, medical education is hardly a profitable excercise. But then again, that doesn't make you feel any better when you get the ever fatter loan statements.

-dope-

 

[Depakote]

for the clincial years, I'd imagine the school, or the hospital has to provide malpractice insurance for the students, that probably costs a mint. (just a thought)

 

[austinap]

for the clincial years, I'd imagine the school, or the hospital has to provide malpractice insurance for the students, that probably costs a mint. (just a thought)

This was all posted in another thread, so I'm not going to go digging around looking for it, but tuition actually only constitutes 2-5% of medical school funding, while professors actually cost about 50% of the funding. You're getting a pretty sweet deal for what you pay for. If you actually paid for everything you were getting, you'd be paying something close to $600k/yr.

 

[LJDHC05]

just doing some simple math:

-60k/year (NYMC prices)x 4 years= $240k in debt at the end.
-factoring in the 5% inflation of tuition each year and increasing living costs for 3rd and 4th year and residency apps, I'll probably be in for over $260k by the time I leave.

So much for my goal of starting a family and buying a house by 30! With interest, that'll be up around $350-400k by the time I pay it off 10 years from now. Guess I'll be driving my corolla for the next decade or so.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

where does all the money for MS3/4 go? backpayments for MS1/2?????? Its gonna be ****ty paying upwards of 40k a year to be an attending's slave doing scut work in the wards just to get Honors so you can get into your specialty of choice.

 

[StevenRF]

This was all posted in another thread, so I'm not going to go digging around looking for it, but tuition actually only constitutes 2-5% of medical school funding, while professors actually cost about 50% of the funding. You're getting a pretty sweet deal for what you pay for. If you actually paid for everything you were getting, you'd be paying something close to $600k/yr.

Which makes me wonder why they keep raising tuition. Every year it costs the schools millions to run. The money from our tuition is a drop in the bucket. However, that little bit of money makes a huge impact on us and basically screws our financial futures for about a decade. Heck, a lot of the cali state schools pretty much doubled their tuition, or fees because there is no tuition for instate residents , in the last 5 years.

 

[austinap]

Which makes me wonder why they keep raising tuition. Every year it costs the schools millions to run. The money from our tuition is a drop in the bucket. However, that little bit of money makes a huge impact on us and basically screws our financial futures for about a decade. Heck, a lot of the cali state schools pretty much doubled their tuition, or fees because there is no tuition for instate residents , in the last 5 years.

True, but I'm sure its harder than it sounds increasing grant revenue by $40 million a year as well. It may seem like a small percentage, but the tuition money is still a lot of money.

 

[browniegirl86]

Heck, a lot of the cali state schools pretty much doubled their tuition, or fees because there is no tuition for instate residents , in the last 5 years.

Which is even MORE awesome when you're an out of state student

 

[edmadison]

The simple answer to the OPs question is that people are willing to pay. The availability of student loans lets schools charge more. You are willing to go greatly into debt because you know there is a big backside gain. You simply don't feel the pain. There was a piece in one of the news magazines about 8 years ago about this. One of the IVY league schools admitted that they raise their tuition solely to keep par with other schools because they didn't want to be perceived as a 'discout' school.

Ed

 

[LizzyM]

Facilities cost money to build, maintain and operate. Someone has to clean, change the lightbulbs, remove the snow. These folks get salaries and benefits (or are out-sourced & under contract). They require equipment and supplies.

There are utility bills and campus police services. There are computer systems, telephones & fax machines, libraries, teaching labs and the staff to operate them. There are Deans and administrators, basic science instructors (some of whom get some money from grants and contracts but who get "hard money" to teach). There is a registrar who keeps your transcripts. There is a tuition and financial aid office. There are alumni & development offices that help to raise money to offset the cost of running the school. There are support services for students who are having problems.

Do you know the cost of health insurance and other fringe benefits for staff and faculty? It is growing every year.

A million things add up and, as in every school, tuition covers only a fraction of the cost of operating a school.

 

[XildUpNawth]

Another reason is that inflation-adjusted state support for medical schools as a percentage of the schools' budgets has decreased dramatically in the last few decades. That's actually true for all state colleges and universities. This has shifted a larger percentage of the financial burden to the schools themselves, which have to spend a lot of time and effort fundraising. It also causes higher tuition, so much so that the cost of a college (and medical) education is out of reach even for many middle class people. Federal student aid in the form of Pell Grants is a fraction of what it was right after WWII, when you adjust for cost of living, inflation, etc.