
New York University said Thursday that it will cover tuition for all of its medical students — both current and future students — regardless of their ability to pay.
For the 2018-19 academic year, that coverage amounts to $55,018 for each student.
The announcement makes NYU the first top-tier institution known to have covered tuition for the entire student body at its medical school. Nationally, 83 percent of M.D. students have $100,000 or more of education debt.
“It makes an enormous difference in our students lives,” said Dr. Robert Grossman, a dean at the School of Medicine and CEO of NYU Langone Health. “We think it will, at some level, relieve one source of stress in medical training.”
It took 11 years for NYU to raise enough funding to make the effort possible. To date, the school has raised over $450 million; Grossman and Dr. Rafael Rivera, associate dean for admissions and financial aid, said that the school should now be able to offer tuition-free education without an end in sight.
Ultimately, NYU hopes to have an endowment of $600 million to support the effort.
The school already allowed students the option to shave off their fourth year of training — typically spent doing additional specialty rotations and applying for residences — saving students a year’s tuition. For the last cohort, 20 percent of students seized this opportunity, said Grossman.
Sarah Keltz, a rising second-year student at the School of Medicine, said the announcement was “amazing news for the whole NYU community.”
She said the coverage will allow her to consider medical specialties based on where there is a need for care, instead of income potential. Keltz, who is interested in psychiatry, said she can now think about providing care in lower-resource settings.
“Hopefully it will increase access for students otherwise deterred by cost,” she added.
This is a very good news to people like me (economically unstable, very passionate about being a doctor). I really would love to know if this includes international students too as I am one.
Dr. Dave:
One person you met makes more than you as an MD? I am surprised you didn’t compare yourself to a CEO or a football player. The average MD is making 300-400k, which is at least 4x what PhDs make.
Even the most bottom of the barrel MD is guaranteed to make $200k just for graduating.
You have clearly lost your focus in an attempt at defending you and your colleagues ludicrous salaries. There is no altruism, nor helping anyone, its clearly all about the money to you.
Anyways, you have missed the point. Medical doctors are the only profession that guarantees a $300k+ salary for passing just exams. So this free tuition isn’t some sort of amazing relief for MDs. They will just get rich faster than they would have without the scholarship.
like x like!
Its clearly all about the money:
Make that top professionals in all sports.
Euro-Soccer players get $50,000 per week,
and a few much more than that…
My son is a biomed engineer working at Medtronics to save for medical school. Too bad he has to spend years automating medicine to replace doctors but gets neither a free education, salary or govt funding. He uses machine learning to diagnose and treat diseases replacing doctors and reducing cost. US could use this skill more than Medical doctors today to head off spiraling costs.
Reply to Dr. Dave:
Hi Dave, read your reply post (Aug 19) and quite like the tone.
Kudos to you for making your skills available without charge,
and for being real-world savvy enough to have secured your
life finances at a relatively early age.
It is a fact of life, as you pointed out, that MDs earnings are
in the top few percent of the working population and so
they are among the few who can afford to make significant
donations to universities. If these MD donors are persuaded
to choose to direct these donations to fund medical students,
well, that’s the med students good luck.
Actually, I think that experts in every profession should
get together to fund students who are aiming for a
professional qualification. Perhaps even plumbers could
fund a few deserving apprentices; the possibilities are
endless.
Can you imagine a bunch of pharma CEOs getting together
to fund Biochem students at several universities?
Out of own their executive remunerations?
Pharma of course could fund many such initiatives, in
a wide range of natural science disciplines, from biology
to maths, in which they have a stake.
The funds they could contribute would make my own
donations pale into insignificance; several million dollars
would not make even a blip on their monthly earnings.
In fact, instead of paying $100Ms to settle gov investigations
of their questionable business/ethical malfeasance, as a
‘cost of doing business’ (sick), why don’t they play by the rules,
and donate a percentage of the huge amount of money
saved to fund student scholarships; they would still be quids in!
In fact, perhaps the gov could require them to do this anyway,
as part of most no liability admitted settlements.
BTW, I make my donations anonymously, because, sadly,
they are too small to need acknowledging, or to make
much difference.
Wow this is great! PleaseforwarE the Li li is it for both international and national students.
Reply to Dr. Dave:
(can you really be a physician, with such egocentric views?)
You know as well as I do that universities use donations for many purposes as well as funding impoverished students.
As a donor to my alma mater, I get to choose which faculties and projects my donations can be used for.
Your posts are all about income! This thread is about funding students!
(Perhaps you have had a hard time repaying your loans since becoming an MD? Sour grapes?)
OK, so student funding is income to the recipients.
Why pay med school students for studying but not other students?
If you are a pyschiatrist, you are probably more off the rails than your patients.
Sometimes we put our foot in our mouth in an attempt to be the top guy on the Internet House of crap pile but here goes
@Sidney Clifford Burford The replies are all about why pay for medical students tuition. The answer is most likely that the funds were from other physicians who once got out and established decided to pay it forward. Without an actual audit no one will ever know but somehow when NYU set up the donation pool the donors decided strongly enough to make it happen
As for me, I am unique in that I have worked for the past 20 years PRO BONO. yes I said for FREE
I am not a Psych not sure where you even thought I was one. I am a surgeon and I have done literally thousands of surgeries for free. the hospital charges but my services are free, zero, nothing. I have earned enough in another endeavor that I no longer need or want to collect for my surgery talents or my teaching of the Fellowship students I mentor to each year
Assuming that someone is one thing or another allows the rest of us to watch you carefully place your foot securely up to the heal into your otherwise large pie-hole to the astonishment of no one as I am sure this is not your first attempt to bash someone that you know NOTHING about online and that is backfired
Suggesting that medical students are any more or less deserving to free tuition is nonsense as suggesting that taking funds away from a contribution fund earmarked for one purpose to another purpose would be at the least appropriate
The donors donated as they did and expect the funds to be used as established now it is NYU’s job to ensure that they control their expenses to keep generations of students in their system with no surprise costs in later years due to higher operating costs or financial mismanagement of the funds
After spending a career in healthcare and teaching colleagues for almost 3 decades what I do know is the ease at which educational institutions can burn thru cash and take what started out to be an altruistic concept and turn it into a total mishmash with future generations to suffer
Dr. Dave (head and neck surgical oncology)