high osteopathic school tuition

[resident_1]

Found this on osteopathic med school forum on SDN.  Apparently Midwestern University College of Osteopathic Medicine tuition for 2018-2019 is $71k with total cost per year being $105k/yr.  They even have the nerve to call one of their options "thrifty" for a yearly cost of $94k/yr.

Their dental school is even more expensive ($79k/yr)
On their main webpage for the osteopathic school they do not mention at all the tuition cost, but do put in a bunch of other data.  In fact its

cost of 2018-2019 osteopathic year

https://www.midwestern.edu/Documents/Financial%20Aid%20documents/COA%20Forms/2018-19%20IL/CCOM_IL1819%20final.pdf

https://www.midwestern.edu/programs_and_admission/il_osteopathic_medicine.html#Fast%20Facts

costs of various programs
https://www.midwestern.edu/course_catalog_home/downers_grove_il_campus/downers_grove_overview/student_financial_services/downers_grove_tuition_and_fees_.html

[HikingDO]

Ugh, that’s ridiculous! My medical school (Kirksville) was one of the most expensive private osteopathic schools 25 years ago, and tuition was only 23K per year. After residency, graduates at Midwestern will owe 1/2 million+.

[ENT Doc]

Gross.

[hightower]

That's quite disturbing.  This is exactly how that Mike Meru guy ended up in the WSJ with $1,000,000 in student debt.  Then imagine the scenario of a student with 450k of loans who isn't able to match into a residency program.  Very likely scenario with some of these newer DO programs.

[Kamban]

I think I had mentioned earlier that osteopathic schools cost much more than comparable MD schools for the simple fact that many people who apply for it are those who cannot get into MD schools due to their grades/ MCAT. Or that they have tried and failed, many like this guy. The DO schools know their desperation and prey on their emotions and those of their Tiger moms and dads. I agree that there are people who choose DO by choice, but all the ones I know are of the former categories.

The private DO school that opened nearby a few years ago charges $80K in tuition alone. I think in a few years time $1M loan might become the norm for this school if they keep the rate increases well above inflation.

[ticker]

Why not charge $100k/year?  You will still be able to fill a class.

Why not enroll?  As long as you can match into a residency, there's always PSLF.

[Hatton]

Very disturbing.  One of my patients just mentioned her daughter will be attending a new DO school this fall.  I could not bring myself to tell her about what I know.

[hightower]

Kamban wrote:

I think I had mentioned earlier that osteopathic schools cost much more than comparable MD schools for the simple fact that many people who apply for it are those who cannot get into MD schools due to their grades/ MCAT. Or that they have tried and failed, many like this guy. The DO schools know their desperation and prey on their emotions and those of their Tiger moms and dads. I agree that there are people who choose DO by choice, but all the ones I know are of the former categories.

The private DO school that opened nearby a few years ago charges $80K in tuition alone. I think in a few years time $1M loan might become the norm for this school if they keep the rate increases well above inflation.

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It's important to note that it seems to be the newer, private DO schools that are doing this.  There are good DO schools out there still that are not jacking up prices and ripping people off.  Ohio University in Athens is one for example.  A resident of Ohio can attend for like 34k/year still.  And it's a good school with a long history of training good docs.

[q-school]

can we take a step back and ask whether we are viewing this through our own biases?

certainly if we think of health care as a mixed resource with societal interest (as I do), we don't want people with huge debt but we also want people who think the profession is at least partially a calling.  I have answered surveys before where I suggested we do have some obligation to community and I remember being in the minority here.

However, the debt is especially onerous if viewed through the lens of early retirement as a priority.  certainly if you don't match, that's a huge problem.  however, you should still be okay as long as you do match.  you just can't have a big house and early retirement.  you can't go part time early.  if your spouse wants to stay home, that may be a problem.  if you want to pay every cent of your kids education, that may be a problem, but if you are an ED doc making 400k you probably can step up number of shifts a little or figure out how to pay the bills.  maybe the spreadsheet guys can tell me I'm wrong and then I would feel different?

is the indignation from price gouging?  is it from giving up the independence to walk away/commitment to maintain a high paying career for three decades?  a lot of these young adults have a passion for medicine that maybe we never had or have forgotten about?  are we too jaded to see that?

just some random thoughts.

ymmv.

 

 

[VagabondMD]

q-school wrote:

can we take a step back and ask whether we are viewing this through our own biases?

certainly if we think of health care as a mixed resource with societal interest (as I do), we don’t want people with huge debt but we also want people who think the profession is at least partially a calling.  I have answered surveys before where I suggested we do have some obligation to community and I remember being in the minority here.

However, the debt is especially onerous if viewed through the lens of early retirement as a priority.  certainly if you don’t match, that’s a huge problem.  however, you should still be okay as long as you do match.  you just can’t have a big house and early retirement.  you can’t go part time early.  if your spouse wants to stay home, that may be a problem.  if you want to pay every cent of your kids education, that may be a problem, but if you are an ED doc making 400k you probably can step up number of shifts a little or figure out how to pay the bills.  maybe the spreadsheet guys can tell me I’m wrong and then I would feel different?

is the indignation from price gouging?  is it from giving up the independence to walk away/commitment to maintain a high paying career for three decades?  a lot of these young adults have a passion for medicine that maybe we never had or have forgotten about?  are we too jaded to see that?

just some random thoughts.

ymmv.

 

 

Click to expand...

I agree with much, if not all, of what you say. I am jaded.

I am concerned that the cost of the education is rising, while the chances that there is a payoff from the education are declining, especially when compared to other opportunities. My cousin’s son, a recent grad from a prestigious university undergraduate business program, secured a finance job with a starting salary of $250k. That’s more than many primary care docs I know with 20+ years of experience.

So you are going to take a 21 year old kid, sell him/her a DO degree from a new school (one without the connections and reputation from established med schools) and have to compete for increasingly competitive residency spots (s/he ain’t gonna match in neurosurgery at MGH, BTW), and emerge with $400-500k of debt and go out into our complex and changing medical world eight or ten years from now. If it were my kid, I would argue strongly against doing it.

There really should be a contractual connection between the tuition, the debt and the outcome. If the med student does not match, the tuition should be completely refunded. This should be across the boards, with the caveat that the student should have to apply to less competitive programs to collect. I wonder if this new DO school could even operate if there was skin in the game like this.

 

[ticker]

q-school,

I appreciate what you're saying.  My gripe isn't so much that young docs are going to have big debts and not retire early- that's their choice.  It's that a Hedge Fund can open a for-profit DO school, charge a fee that would be untenable but for the presence of government loans and PSLF (these schools couldn't have existed years ago when a bank was directly loaning students money and actually doing the math requisite for sound underwriting), and profit by (via PSLF) charging the unwitting taxpayer a bill he'll never know he's paid.

 

[Lithium]

ticker wrote:

Why not charge $100k/year?  You will still be able to fill a class.

Why not enroll?  As long as you can match into a residency, there’s always PSLF.

Click to expand...

They also have higher than average graduation rates, along with 100% match rates (must be getting bailed out by the osteopathic match).  So they can probably jack up tuition a lot more before their numbers start to suffer.

[q-school]

Vagabond MD wrote:

q-school wrote:

can we take a step back and ask whether we are viewing this through our own biases?

certainly if we think of health care as a mixed resource with societal interest (as I do), we don’t want people with huge debt but we also want people who think the profession is at least partially a calling.  I have answered surveys before where I suggested we do have some obligation to community and I remember being in the minority here.

However, the debt is especially onerous if viewed through the lens of early retirement as a priority.  certainly if you don’t match, that’s a huge problem.  however, you should still be okay as long as you do match.  you just can’t have a big house and early retirement.  you can’t go part time early.  if your spouse wants to stay home, that may be a problem.  if you want to pay every cent of your kids education, that may be a problem, but if you are an ED doc making 400k you probably can step up number of shifts a little or figure out how to pay the bills.  maybe the spreadsheet guys can tell me I’m wrong and then I would feel different?

is the indignation from price gouging?  is it from giving up the independence to walk away/commitment to maintain a high paying career for three decades?  a lot of these young adults have a passion for medicine that maybe we never had or have forgotten about?  are we too jaded to see that?

just some random thoughts.

ymmv.

 

 

Click to expand…

I agree with much, if not all, of what you say. I am jaded.

I am concerned that the cost of the education is rising, while the chances that there is a payoff from the education are declining, especially when compared to other opportunities. My cousin’s son, a recent grad from a prestigious university undergraduate business program, secured a finance job with a starting salary of $250k. That’s more than many primary care docs I know with 20+ years of experience.

So you are going to take a 21 year old kid, sell him/her a DO degree from a new school (one without the connections and reputation from established med schools) and have to compete for increasingly competitive residency spots (s/he ain’t gonna match in neurosurgery at MGH, BTW), and emerge with $400-500k of debt and go out into our complex and changing medical world eight or ten years from now. If it were my kid, I would argue strongly against doing it.

There really should be a contractual connection between the tuition, the debt and the outcome. If the med student does not match, the tuition should be completely refunded. This should be across the boards, with the caveat that the student should have to apply to less competitive programs to collect. I wonder if this new DO school could even operate if there was skin in the game like this.

 

Click to expand...

thanks for sharing.  if your nephew's experience is typical, and the job has long term security, then I definitely would have pursued it when I graduated if I had known about it.  too much family obligation to do what I did.  and that would have been a shame in some ways, because I still think medicine is deeply fulfilling to me that finance would not be.

I also would probably discourage my kid from pursuing medicine if I knew about these finance jobs.  luckily my kid is 12 and I heard about this actuary thing, so I'm pretty happy that I have time to brainwash him.  also he can't stand the sight of blood so less likely to pursue medicine. 

don't undersell your nephew though.  maybe he got the job because he is exceptionally skilled.  I hear you about the primary care thing because my wife is more than 20 years in and has never sniffed 200k.  my friend who sells video games and makes more than her just is astonished at how little primary physicians make compared to him who basically goes around and makes jokes with people and tries to get them to play his game.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/curiosity-and-the-prisoner

commencement speech ucla by atul gawande.

I ponder what I would say if asked to give a commencement address.

 

 

[FIREshrink]

Ticker is right. This is all enabled by unlimited loan availability and unlimited PSLF. basically we as taxpayers are subsidizing the profit and bureaucracy at schools everywhere, some honorable, many not.

[ticker]

FIREshrink wrote:

Ticker is right. This is all enabled by unlimited loan availability and unlimited PSLF. basically we as taxpayers are subsidizing the profit and bureaucracy at schools everywhere, some honorable, many not.

Click to expand...

It's kind of maddening.  Non-profit schools can't take a profit because they receive taxpayer dollars.  But for-profits can take a profit because the taxpayer dollars they receive are a little more indirect (PSLF).