Sure, community college to state public is a possibility for some. But, it depends.
Common hurdles include: affordable transportation to the community college, availability of work to earn $$ while attending, having a rent free or nearly rent free roof over your head, having a home base that is safe + not chaotic, not getting sucked into family caretaking or endless family financial crisis.
@gallentjill I agree that all income levels, except those on full merit or on full need schools are suffering from sticker shock. I am told that at colleges and universities 65% of revenue goes to payroll, when most businesses are far below that. Also, the fancy stuff on campuses creates additional unneeded costs. The cost of education is a huge huge issue. I just object to one group telling another group that any complaints they have are laughable and they should be glad to subsidize a troubled system.
@magnetron Sorry to hear about your wife’s experience.
Having lived in both France and the US, I can say with direct experience that I prefer the US model. In our own family a major medical center found a cure for my daughter’s rare disease. Without this center we would still be looking. So while I can fathom the depth and expense of medical care, I certainly want it to be available then depend on the alternative. I won’t go into your own path but I can state that the system is not perfect in either country. I prefer the US model because it is based on choice and self insurance vs. mandated state services. Having lived in many countries, the Swiss system is probably best but it depends it’s more of a bronze, silver and gold with the insured paying much more for the premium services.
If we are talking about medical, we have to decide what’s important for us. For some, having everyone insured is key. For others it’s cutting edge research. For others it’s access to other things. Personally, I don’t think France did a good job in any of those areas. The one exception was general practice which was very good.
This statement has no relationship to reality. For one thing, “ER ward” is not a thing. Emergency rooms (now often called emergency departments) are not “wards.” For another, the hospital, not the patient, decides whether the patient will check into a hospital.
I suppose the poster is referring to EMTALA, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. As its name implies, this law requires that hospitals treat people who show up with health emergencies, or who show up in active labor. The hospital is required to stabilize people with health emergencies, and is required to admit women in active labor until the baby is born. In both cases, the hospital is entitled to, and will, bill the patient for all the treatment they receive.
Cancer is not a health emergency. Chemotherapy is not a health emergency. Emergency departments do not do chemotherapy. No hospital is required to offer chemotherapy to a patient who shows up with cancer.
tl;dr EMTALA does not require hospitals to treat sick people in general, only people with health emergencies, and only to stabilize the emergency. EMTALA does hot entitle anyone to free health care from hospitals.
http://in-training.org/wanna-go-medical-school-better-rich-12070
A good article on how medical school admissions discriminates against those who are not upper income by adding so many non-paid requirements of research, shadowing and volunteerism.
30 years ago when my sister attended medical school, a middle class family could pay out of pocket, the tuition was that reasonable. Now in-state tuition to the same school is $45,000 a year. And they didn’t have an interview for her state school (another savings on travel expenses). The criteria was solely grades in college and MCAT scores, not all the other ECs now required. A middle class person had no disadvantages, at least not as many as today.
But I don’t see medical schools or universities taking it upon themselves to remove these very real barriers. Whoever said Byzantine admissions system was right.
That’s kind of the main point of the article, @Happytimes2001 . We have a great system for the 9.9% and we are out of touch with what most people have to deal with. We have concierge service for those with high net worth and gold plan insurance. Your daughter had access to health care that most Americans would not have.
The healthcare system in France is consistently rated as #1 in the world by people who study such things as a profession, all at roughly half the cost of ours. A part of that is their easy access to general practitioners. It is much more efficient to take steps to avoid illness.
@TatinG. You are absolutely right. Medical school admissions is even worse than undergraduate. It is an extracurricular arms race and 90,000 a year tuition. And it costs over ten thousand dollars to do all of those interviews.
Most people have their medical choices limited by their insurance plans, which they have limited choices of due to linkage with employment. If you are in the 0.1%, then you may have the choice to self pay or pay out of network charges without using up all of your money, but that is not available to most people.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Not only did this thread devolve into debate, the conversation got too nasty and too personal. Several posts deleted. If I have time later, I’ll delete others. Regardless, closing thread.