Financial Challenges Different from the Past

The financial challenges facing today's medical students are increasingly different from what most physicians experienced during their own medical training for a number of reasons.

• Over the two decades since 1980, medical school tuition costs have almost tripled, or -
• More than twice as fast as the general cost of living, and
• Nearly three times as fast as students' expected future earnings.
  
  
• Opportunity for medical students to earn supplementary income during their school year is virtually impossible due to demanding schedules.
  
  
• The way that medical students are trained has also changed. Since the elimination of the rotating internship and the establishment of family medicine as a specialty, all graduates now go directly into a residency program, and can no longer moonlight with their general licenses during their residency.