How much debt is it okay to go in?

Pre-med and medicine is not a career path I’d recommend for most people. It’s a very long and challenging path with a high potential for failure. It requires tremendous time, dedication, effort and sacrifice. Not to mention a willingness to take on substantial debt.

There’s saying about medicine: if there is anything else you can see yourself doing as a career–do that other thing.

And I know that medicine requires a substantial commitment to community service. I have two kiddos who are young physicians in residency. (And earning peanuts while working 60-80 hours/week.)

The career outlook for BA/BS level chem majors is not strong and the median starting salary is <$40K

https://www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/careers/salaries/secure/salaries/new-graduates-2014-revised.pdf

(NOTE: data includes salary info for chemical engineers which skews average starting salaries higher.)