Graduate school is universally regarded as incredibly expensive, medical school more so still. Thusly, when NYU announced at their white coat ceremony this year that their medical school would be tuition free, a shockwave was sent through the nation.
NYU’s medical school is an esteemed school with a ranking of the third best medical school in the nation, only beat out by Harvard and Johns Hopkins. On average their tuition sits at $56,000 annually. So you can imagine the astonishment when they announced that they were going to be completely tuition-free. This is an all-inclusive package, meaning that tuition not including room and board) will be covered for all students, regardless of their circumstances.
What exactly does this mean for current and future students? What does this even mean for the field of medicine? This year NYU accepted 93 first-year medical students, indicating just how prestigious this school truly is, though as the applications are beginning to flood in, it’s evident that acceptance rates will begin to diminish. This decision sets a precedent for other medical schools to recognize a crisis, which is as students strive for higher levels of education, they begin to take on a disproportionate amount of debt. In one article by the New York Times, it was stated that the average debt of the class of 2017 was $184,000.This fact means that many young physicians are straying away from lower paying medical jobs, such as family practices, and striving for “higher paying” jobs, such as cardiology or anesthesiology. This offers students the opportunity to practice what they truly desire to practice without having the financial burden of student loan debt.
Beyond all of this, this announcement opens the door for a whole new range of medical students, as a large population of students will never go on to obtain their M.D solely because of its cost, meaning that between obtaining their bachelors degree and further education, legions of brilliant minds are being lost. This offers a chance to students who may have never had the chance otherwise, promising a new wave of diversity to come from future medical professionals.
NYU has began to blaze the trial for medical schools to open their doors to a more diverse and need base population. For this, myself and many others are thankful.
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