Madisyn
is there anyway to get scholarships for medical school
After my four years of undergrad I want to go into medical school but I know it will be expensive #medicine #scholarships #healthcare #hospital-and-healthcare #doctor -school
4 answers
Estelle Archer
Estelle’s Answer
Some students were able to do work-study to make some money.
Richard A.
Richard’s Answer
Christopher Carroll
Christopher’s Answer
The financial concern surrounding medical school is legitimate and a common one among all students, particularly with rising debt loads. That said, the reason banks are willing to loan such vast sums to medical students is because the rate of default is so low. While you can make informed financial decisions to minimize your expenses as much as feasible, there are many options to mitigate debt and repayment.
This would include loan forgiveness programs whereby you commit to practice in an underserved area out of residency. There are public service scholarships trade funding medical school for service obligation to the public health service or department of defense (you can chose Army, Navy, or Air Force) as well as the federal medical school, Uniformed Service University of Health Sciences. There are eligibility requirements and a formal application process for each that would be difficult to detail in brief here. The bottom line is with these options, one way or another, you are indebted in service rather than money.
There are some open scholarships for medical school matriculants and most medical schools have different forms of financial aid, albeit less extensive than your typical college. Institutional support can range from training and research grants to fund you pursuing an interest between M1 and M2 years to partial or even full-tuition scholarships with and without stipends.
A third and highly variable means is through your employer. Depending on your specialty, the recruitment package to hire you may include loan repayment or a signing bonus that can be used to pay part or all of your debt. This is highly variable by specialty, region, and employer. But, the good news is all contracts are negotiable so you could always try to negotiate a loan repayment in whereby your employer pays down your loans. This can be a strategy to decrease taxable income (by having your employer pay the loan down on your behalf) rather than deducting loan payments after paying tax on the income as well.
So the short answer is that while there are a small number of scholarships, the majority of students finance their medical education through debt. There are a variety of ways to help pay that debt or have it forgiven. And, even for those who are paying their loans down personally the vast vast majority are doing so without defaulting or struggling (relatively) financially.
