UNC is larger than Duke, but will provide an “intellectual community.” That is not something to be concerned about.
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That’s fair advice for someone with no financial constraints. But an extra $40k is a lot of money.
I’d add that while Duke is smaller than UNC, obviously, I wouldn’t consider it “small.” Davidson or places like that seem to better fit that bill.
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Sorry,
FA forms were incorrect - updated and received financial aid
2 weeks ago received academic scholarship randomly (seems like UNC likes doing this since my friend had the same thing)
$40K is small in the grand scheme of things. Should be quite manageable, unless you go into a low-paying job. Just my two cents coming from someone in Silicon Valley. 
Unless I am mistaken, Duke is 41,000 per year more than UNC.
OP wants to go into academic medicine. That is about as low paying as they come.
https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Academic-Physician-Salary-by-State
For real??? That can’t be right…
It is.
People in academics are expected to generate their own money from grants. Universities do not support research or teaching from their funds. You basically buy back your time with your own money.
If you have no funding for research, you are seeing patients to generate your income and getting shafted.
Clinicians don’t make that little–that’s ridiculous. Now, maybe a PhD without a grant, that’s a different story…
Starting salaries at academic centers for clinicians are easily in the multiples of 6 figures…
University based physician has to share patient driven income with the department and the university. Private practice group will make more money because less bureaucracy and overhead.
Many people are willing to make less money to have an academic title.
It’s $40,000 x 4, $160,000.
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But money aside, I think OP made a great choice picking UNC over CMU for pre-med.
Now, if he was headed to silicone valley, I think that would have been different.
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Across 4 years that’s $160k in loans. Which you could avoid by going to one of the worlds great public universities.
OP’s call. Depends on their finances.
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$160,000 will pay for about 1 1/2 years of medical school….
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Most teaching at academic medical centers is not conducted by MD/PhDs.
And there are research track residencies for non- Md/PhDs at all academic centers. There are even special programs (11 year or less) that prepare medical graduates to become clinical researchers. These programs are offered by research institutions like the CDC and NIH.
All physicians who work at academic medical centers are expected to engage in clinical or other research as part of their job.
BTW, most MD/PhD jobs are not evenly divided between lab time and clinical time. Most MD/PhD jobs are lopsided 75-25 or 80-20 splits with most time going to clinical practice unless the MD/PhD is really good at getting research grants that pay for their release time from clinical practice.
The mean age of a MD/PhD getting their first RO1 grant in 2023 is 46 years old. (Without grant funding, you can’t set up or run a research lab.)
MD/PhDs make substantially less than MDs to the tune of several millions of dollars less over a career. This is due to the longer training period for MD/PhD–an average of 7-8 years in med school and then years longer research-centered residencies and fellowships. It’s also because academic faculty are paid less than their private practice colleagues. (And that before RVU reimbursements and other practice incentives are considered.)
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