121–130 of 531 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would a university willingly give up millions of dollars in tuition? Some people and institutions optimize for other things once they have enough money. Alas, this couldn’t have a large effect on health costs anyway, since costs are dominated by things other than doctor pay.
They're not giving it up—it's being paid by the interest on a rather large endowment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve started thinking of the obligation to stick in industry to pay off my loans as an analog to having an organization like the US military pay for my degree. I have a few friends in the military studying at university for free. Their payment for those degrees essentially consists of X number years of obligatory post-degree military service, in addition to whatever military obligations during their study. [1] It’s a…
Sounds like smart thinking to me. I do similar rationalizing myself, and I wouldn’t worry too much what others think. These things are tough to reconcile but we are all wrestling with them, and we have to keep our heads healthy to contend. The only mistake I’d warn against is letting this influence your judgement of others, or your prescription for future generations. They are counting on us and we are counting on th…
I’m curious what your segue is from contextualizing and rationalizing decisions I’ve/we’ve made for myself/ourselves to judgements on others.
My point, I guess, was that it’s easy to think of university costs purely in monetary cost and ignore the inherent time-cost required to pay.
The calculus I did when looking at schools was: it costs X much, median starting salary for this field is Y, I’ll have to “do my time” for Z years as payment for my education. Looking at it that way, I’m paying for school with time, not money.
This is amazing. I graduated from medical school two years ago with $300,000 in debt. I'm a software developer on the side and would love to stop residency to try a healthcare startup and/or pursue a research, but the risk is too great - I need the attending salary to pay off the debt.
I’ve started thinking of the obligation to stick in industry to pay off my loans as an analog to having an organization like the US military pay for my degree. I have a few friends in the military studying at university for free. Their payment for those degrees essentially consists of X number years of obligatory post-degree military service, in addition to whatever military obligations during their study. [1] It’s a…
You're analogy works for academic programs that lead to careers that pay reasonably well. But, not for underwater tiddlywinks - no amount of time spent in that field will allow you to pay down the debt.
1 - They pay for four years, plus some expenses. Generally, if you drop out of the ROTC program after the start of year two, you owe Uncle Sam whatever has been paid on your behalf. If you finish the program, you are committed to 4+ years of service (differs by branch and job role, with some allowing the commitment to be split between active duty and reserve).
2 - ROTC programs prioritize technical degrees and foreign languages over other degrees.
I'll probably be downvoted on a forum like this, but I worry about the most successful universities using their funds to subsidize those who would be fine without it. I was actually made aware of this by a wealthy Stanford alumni which has a fairly broad program for undergraduate tuition assistance. Graduates of mid/low tier universities seem more and more likely to have to compete with better credentialed people wit…
While "gaining admission to NYU medical school" is likely correlated with good socio-economic background (as do all accomplishment), the correlation is not 100%. You can get into NYU from a poor socio-economic background, if you work hard and attain academic excellence. And while all students will appreciate this discount, it will make more of a difference to those who are not "fine without it", i.e. those below the…
Very true. Unfortunately many times the schools where a kid from a lower socio-economic background will attend will not prepare them for a school like NYU. In fact, sometimes it will probably be a net negative.
Not necessarily the school itself, but the whole environment. Other students will be so disruptive to an entire class or school that they will drag down their piers down with them. And by this I'm talking about gangs, drugs, bullying. And if it is not their piers it may be their family themselves who will drag down the kids (alcoholism, drug addiction, domestic violence).
And it is not like you can just say they should know better, because at that age they don't really know any better. Kids from crappy neighborhoods don't even start in the home base, many times they are not even allowed to play.
> School officials worry that rising tuition and soaring loan balances are pushing new doctors into high-paying fields and contributing to a shortage of researchers and primary care physicians. I think this is only partially true, because it misunderstands the motivations of many would-be doctors. Sure, the cost of medical education factors into specialty decisions, but as long as derm and ortho are regarded as more…
There are doctors of physical therapy who make 60-100k.
Physicians have a government monopoly on prescription and referrals.
The scarcity in MD and DO licenses drives up the cost due to the power granted by the license.
I'll probably be downvoted on a forum like this, but I worry about the most successful universities using their funds to subsidize those who would be fine without it. I was actually made aware of this by a wealthy Stanford alumni which has a fairly broad program for undergraduate tuition assistance. Graduates of mid/low tier universities seem more and more likely to have to compete with better credentialed people wit…
Those competitive jobs will likely to go to the better-credentialed people anyway, regardless of debt status. On the other hand, perhaps some great minds choose to go into medicine rather than banking, or more important but lower-paying medical disciplines, because they know they won't be graduating with crippling debt. That seems like a big win.
> School officials worry that rising tuition and soaring loan balances are pushing new doctors into high-paying fields and contributing to a shortage of researchers and primary care physicians. I think this is only partially true, because it misunderstands the motivations of many would-be doctors. Sure, the cost of medical education factors into specialty decisions, but as long as derm and ortho are regarded as more…
Over time this dynamic translates into to the prestige gap.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did a prelim-surgery intern year. The hours are worse than medicine, but there are way less "mandatory" activities (no lectures, no endless rounding, etc.). For the most part, you're on the floor waiting for pages. I used the time between pages to write code. Now I'm a radiology resident and have much more time.
> the time between pages to write code. Makes me feel like a slacker for not studying medicine or law while I'm waiting for my code to compile.
1) A free collage will end up being more like extended high school.
2) At some point new institutes of for pay higher education will pop up. They just won't be called colleges. People who can afford them will clearly have a advantage and top companies will start to seek out people who attended these organizations.
3) The quality of the education will drop. It already has at a lot of schools with the introduction of loan for everybody gig.
While this will reset thing for a while. Maybe even a generation of two. We will end up again with people wanting the next level of education free.
EDIT: now that I am not trying to type on a tiny phone.
The problem with free is it will then need to cater to the LCD. Right now we we have a filter on the LCD because there is some effort and risk required by the person going to school. There is something special about buying something, and owning it. You tend to tend for it better, give it the attention it needs and ensure it last a long time. If we bypass this step we will end up with masses going to school doing the same thing they do in high school today. This might be hard to visualize as the HN crowd is a fairly smart crowd and probably took advantage of the offerings of their high school, and likely were not aware of those who did not.
This won't be as big of an issue for those who are "gifted" as they will be sheltered in their special classes slotted away with like minded ilk. But for the less "gifted" student the expense will be dragged down to the LCD. So if you are not lucky, smart enough, or had the right coaching from parents to get into those gifted classes you will be left with a much worse education.
I left my career path in local government partially due to financial concerns related to undergrad debt. This is not strictly a medical sector issue.
Economics says that things are designed to work this way. You have felt the economic indicators and made changes accordingly.
The economy(you, your friends, your community, the world) benefits when you make profit. If your prior path was burdened with massive debt with little way to repay it, it sounds like a bad decision.
I cant imagine too many situations where doing something that pays significantly worse and puts you in more debt is better for society.