Medical school will be free at NYU

[UpInArms]

Source: NBC

New York University said Thursday that it will offer free tuition to all its medical school students, in the hope of encouraging more doctors to choose lower-paying specialties.

Many surveys have shown that medical school graduates gravitate to the more lucrative specialties, in part to pay off enormous student debts.

“Every student enrolled in our MD degree program receives a full-tuition scholarship, regardless of merit or financial need, that covers the majority of the cost of attendance,” the school says on its website.

NYU said it got a batch of grants to pay for the full scholarship option, including some from Home Depot co-founder Kenneth Langone, who chairs the medical school’s board of trustees.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna901431

---

That is definitely a great step in the right direction

[BigmanPigman]

1. WOW! Fantastic!

Thank you NYU!

[procon]

2. I hope this idea will spread to other states.

There are so many brilliant and talented young people that dream of becoming physicians, but lack the financial means to ever hope of getting into college.

[bullwinkle428]

3. BEAUTIFUL!! My Dad's alma mater.

[continentalop2]

4. Oh good

Finally someone is going to help subsidize those poor underpaid doctors

[Judi Lynn]

5. What wonderful news. There's no downside to allowing people who have the skills

but not the funding to find their way into a profession where they would be useful and fulfilled, and greatly appreciated.

You are so right, this is such an important step for the future students, and for the society. If only it will be duplicated now by other people of good will, character, and intelligence. About time.

[JI7]

6. this is great and the payoffs economically and socially will make the country better

[RockRaven]

7. There's a couple of decades of NYU Med School graduates who would really like this to be retroactive

But it *could* be a good move. Good on NYU for trying something which they believe is promising.

Remains to be seen though a) if the intended goals are reached, and b) if any unintended consequences arise.

[PatSeg]

8. What a brilliant idea!

Over the past decade or so, the majority of doctors that I've dealt with have come from other countries and often there are far more patients than they can handle. There are all kinds of incentives to get foreign doctors and medical students to come to the U.S., because we don't have enough. How bizarre that a country as seemingly wealthy and so called advanced as the U.S. cannot train enough doctors to serve the population. Once again, it comes to down to money and screwed up priorities.

Though a small step, it is a very positive one for healthcare in our country.

[Snellius]

9. In CA in-state tuition at UC used to be free. Then Reagan came along.

Don't know about med school but I went to Berkeley in the sixties and we paid nothing except what was called an "incidental fee" of $75 per semester, twice a year. When Reagan became Governor he convinced the state that that was socialism and drastically raised the rates. Free public college education was not a dream. It was the Reagan Revolution Repubs, who didn't want to pay taxes to support anyone but their own racially-pure WASPs, who convinced everyone that America meant self-reliant individualism, movie cowboys like John Wayne, everyone looking out for only themselves. It worked. Even most Dems still share the values of that reactionary myth.

[disndat]

14. When Earl Warren was Governor of Calif

He made U.C university system, tuition free with money collected from the tolls on the San Francisco/Oakland
Bay Bridge. Then Ronald Reagan ended tuition free Univ. of Calif. because he said he is not going to help
fund education of people who would vote against me.

[Snellius]

15. Also Pat Brown, Jerry's father, and even Repub Knight

The CA school system when I grew up there was beyond progressive. And it was great. For anyone who wants to understand how reactionary Reagan Republicanism can destroy a truly open and enlightened educational system, this was it. Reagan kept that movie-star aura for many, but for those who knew him from CA, he was worse than Trump. Our world would be so much better if he had stuck to westerns.

Warren also did much to establish the state university system which was extensive. For the whole state there were, and still are, only two major private universities, USC and Stanford. Not the kind of class system as in the East with exclusive and elite ivy-league schools.

[a la izquierda]

10. If I wanted to stay in the US...

I’d jump at this chance. I already have a PhD that I’ll never pay off and I’m looking for a career change.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

11. Why subsidize the education of people who tend to not provide the outcomes NYU is trying to foster?

It would make much more sense to make the nursing school free. There's a shortage of primary-care providers. APRNs can do an outstanding job filling that need. The vast majority of APRNs go on to practice primary care. They're also more likely to be first-gen students and have fewer resources. This is misguided.

[proglib217]

17. I agree

I agree with your post.

I do, however, support the concept of free tuition for medical school attendees *provided the recipient agrees in writing to practice general medicine* **and serve an underserved community for at least seven years following his or her receipt of his or her M.D.**

[SWBTATTReg]

12. One small step in the right direction, as long as these students receiving this wonderful ...

gift appreciate it and maintain the grade standards and attendance requirements (if required) to maintain the scholarship. Such a wonderful thing...believe me, there are tons of folks out there in the real world who would really appreciate and use such a gift.

[TexasBushwhacker]

13. "in the hope of encouraging more doctors to choose lower-paying specialties"

This seems like an odd way of doing things. They HOPE more med students will choose lower paying specialties like primary care and pediatrics, but future heart surgeons (just an example) get the free ride too.

I would think they would provide scholarships for Physician's Assistants and Nurse Practioners.

[Snellius]

16. That's the real problem with this. Sounds good politically but will solve nothing

Not until they stop treating the MD profession as a closed and exclusive and money-driven guild. We need more doctors and a broader criterion of who a doctor is. It's always about following the money.