This is not necessarily true. Some med schools currently offer institutional loans to their students, and more are expected to do so in response to the new federal limit. Some schools even offer loans that can be forgiven if one takes certain qualifying jobs.
Yale is one school that has recently announced a broad program to fill the gap left by the federal loan limits:
I agree with this, and institutional loans (whether undergrad or grad) will impact private loans too.
Yale has deep pockets; most medical schools don’t.
Also Yale only takes about ~104 student year out the of ~32,000 MD and DO students matriculating each year.
Yale is just one example, there are many med schools that give institutional loans. An example of a med school with fewer resources than Yale that gives institutional loans to their students is UC Riverside.
It is early days since the federal loan changes happened, we should give colleges and the finance industry time to adjust and create new options for students…IMO the number of professional grad program students needing loans is a large, attractive market that some companies and colleges aren’t going to ignore.
It’s large; it remains to be seen if it’s attractive at scale.
There were lenders “back in the day” who lost money (some significant amounts) on student loans. Most had the federal government as their backstop (the various loan programs worked differently than they do now, and some had no limits, required zero collateral or income stream or credit history).
I’m skeptical that the federal government wants to be in the student loan business at all right now, whether as the “we’ll bail you out so your bank doesn’t fail” or more moderate “lender of last resort” programs.
I’d proceed cautiously before assuming that the private sector is eager to jump into the student loan business in a bigger way than they’re in it right now. The compliance, administration, fulfillment costs are onerous; there are easier ways for banks to make money; there are three handfuls of Senators/Congresspeople who will jump on ANY financial institution that is perceived as “making money off the backs off hard-working nurses and schoolteachers”. And if the bank isn’t making money on its student loan portfolio- then it’s losing money. Those are millions or billions of dollars which could be earning money somewhere else.
I agree.
Ultimately, time will tell how colleges and perhaps finance companies respond.
Another thing to consider…those private and most institutional loans will not have multiple repayment options, and things like income based repayment (which during the lean resident years can be a lifesaver for loan repayment). And some private loans will have repayments which will start as soon as the loan is dispersed. No six month grace period, or anything like that.
These are factors to be considered.
To the OPs subject title. You can major in anything and be a “premed” intended student. You just need to be sure to take the required courses for medical school applicants.
Because the applications are very specific. For example, a biochemist may design artificial tissue, an electrical engineer may design medical imaging machines, and a mechanical engineer may design prosthetics. All such professionals would be classified as biomedical engineers. In contrast, a BME curriculum may too general as preparation for any of these applications. Nonetheless, a minor in BME may be desirable to complement another major for a career as a biomedical engineer, and a major in BME may be desirable for a future physician.
And a plain vanilla statistician may be the glue that holds the team together.
BME is as good a major as anything else for someone hoping to apply to medical school.
If you are interested in biology, medicine, and engineering, BME is a great major for exploring all of these interests! As you learn more about this broad field, and about what specifically you’d like to do, you might decide in a year or two that it makes sense to switch to a more traditional major in engineering (such as MechE, EE, materials science), or biology, or another major. Or you can finish and graduate with a BME major; people can and do get jobs with this major, or go on to graduate school, medical school, etc.
Yeah, it feels to me like the OP is open to starting a program, seeing how it goes, and making adjustments to their plans. As most people end up doing some version of that anyway, that is a prudent attitude.
Given that, I don’t see huge stakes in what major the OP is starting with. I do think the OP should be carefully considering which colleges would be good for a variety of different paths. Fortunately, the OP isn’t currently considering any colleges that I would consider to be bad choices from that perspective.
I got $5,500. I’m not sure about any other specifics
Another concern I have is that engineering at Purdue is known to be extremely rigorous. I’ve heard that maintaining a high GPA can be quite difficult, although I’m not entirely sure how credible those sources are. In addition, I was wondering—since I’ve taken around 11 AP classes—how beneficial it would be to use that credit to skip introductory courses. I understand that medical schools have specific requirements regarding AP credit and what can or cannot be substituted with higher-level coursework, so I wanted to get your perspective on that as well.
$5500 is the standard loan. If you need to take loans to pay for college, budget ahd not school name should be your concern. Are any affordable without loans ?
My friend, you want to major in engineering, where nationally half don’t finish. They either change majors or drop out. It’s a butt kicker no matter where you go. My kid turned down Purdue with merit to go to Alabama - and guess what - first semester, he had to withdraw from a class.
Your family is concerned that Purdue is beneath you but you’re worried about hard classes ? How do you think med school will be ??
Btw others disagree but at one school (Col School of Mines), the student panel said to repeat all math and science classes - not to take the AP credit. My son had to WD from one in which he got a 5 in AP. Your mileage may vary at your school.
Good luck.
I agree Engineering is hard everywhere, not just Purdue.
Long story short, I also agree a lot of AP credits may be more hurtful than helpful for premed, to the point you might indeed intentionally not seek available credit, at least in the med prereq subjects. It depends on your total curriculum plan, but you could end up having to take more advanced courses than other premeds will have to take in order to satisfy certain requirements. Which could in fact add GPA risk.
Agree with @NiceUnparticularMan
You should read this FAQ about premed and AP classes.
Not all med school accept AP/IB credits. Some will accept some, but not others. And medical schools expect students who have AP credits for the basic pre-med course recorded on their transcript to take upper level credits in the same departments in order to prove mastery of the more basic material.
Also AP scores are not included in GPA or sGPA calculations for med school. Engineering classes are not included in sGPA calculations for med school, only bio, chem, physics and math classes are.