But they saved the best for last. A ER doctor just out of residency who has $493,000 in school loans. His loans were in an income based repayment during residency and I think they were $1700 but he said they didn’t even cover the interest accrual. His payments now are going to be $4700 for the next 15 years, he hoped.
The doctor blamed that his school increased tuition while he was there from 45,000 to 60,000/year.
I am trying these figures from memory so some figures might be a bit off but not by much.
The experts asked some questions but I wished they had asked some more. One expert asked him if he could move in with his mother (he has a wife and 2 kids). And another thought he should go on an income based repayment because the loan would be forgiven after 20 years. I don’t think either expert had a grasp on the reality of the situation but what do I know.
I am sure you can accrue that much debt but I have to imagine that some of it had to be from undergrad, right? Oh and the doctor estimated that 85% of his loans were for tuition and not living expenses.
Maybe he can blame ~$30k on a tuition increase his final year or two, but that’s a small amount of his total.
He could go into public service medicine for 10 years and be on interest based repayments for his government loans and have those forgiven after 10 years. He made choices, like to go to medical school and get married and have two children. Until we go to a system like Brittan’s where the doctors are required to work for the government for a number of years, this is the US system. If you borrow a lot of money to go to medical school, your living options after graduation are very limited.
I’m guessing that a chunk of that loan balance is from accrued interest. Medical students can have several years between the time they start borrowing for med school and the time they have enough income to start making payments that cover principal and interest. I have a relative who attended a private medical school in NYC with a current COA in excess of $80,000 a year (I’m not sure what it was when he was attending). He graduated from medical school six years ago and will start his first “real” (as in well paying) job later this year after finishing his internship, residencies and fellowships. He has not been able to make anywhere close to full P&I payments on his loans yet, so I’m sure he owes an impressive sum. He’s not married, has no kids, and has had roommates since he started college many years ago - some of his choices have definitely been dictated by his debt. His parents, who are not wealthy, pay for his airline tickets to come home for holidays because that is otherwise not in the budget. He said that he had classmates whose parents paid for their entire educations, but that most were in the same boat he is. Professional schools have become ridiculously expensive.
@twoinanddone Just to clarify: doctors in the UK are not required to work for the government for a number of years. Healthcare in the UK is provided by the National Health Service (NHS), which is publicly funded and free at the point of delivery (there is a private system but it covers about 5% of the population). Virtually all new doctors work for the NHS but they are not obliged to do so. In recent years some have emigrated to Canada or Australia open qualifying but otherwise they all work for the NHS, as do 90% of all doctors and specialists.
