NYU Medical School Makes Tuition Free for All Students
There is outstanding news coming out of NYU Medical School today. At a ceremony for incoming medical students it was announced that all of them would be receiving full-ride scholarships and be unburdened by medical school debt upon graduation.
The school initiated a tuition-free goal over a decade ago. The University needs $600 million to make the school tuition-free in perpetuity and has raised $450 million of the funds needed to date.
Student debt is the fastest growing category of consumer debt reaching $1.3 trillion this year. Just under 75% of all doctors graduated with student debt last year according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. The median educational debt that doctors graduated came in at $200,000. High debt can steer doctors away from community health and research to more lucrative areas.
NYU is the first medical school to offer free tuition. It is ranked as one of the top ten medical schools in the country. Tuition at NYU Medical School runs $55,018 a year.
Congratulations to these young medical students and to NYU Medical School for making such a stunning and bold decision that will improve the cost and quality of healthcare in this country. Let’s hope this is the start of a trend on the part of other universities.
