UMKC 6-year BA/MD Program

Pre-Med & Medical School Multiple Degree Programs
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Will add one more data point for comparison here

The only private med school in MO with a comparable rank to UMKC is SLU. So let us see how 4 years undergrad and 4 year med school will cost at SLU

SLU undergrad tuition for 4 years - $120k (assuming generous merit aid/scholarship, I think it will be higher)
SLU med school total off-campus COA/year= $90k - Tuition+fee was $68k and summer semester another $5k (which is not included in the 90k)
Total SLU med school - $360k

Total SLU cost = $480k (fairly close to UMKC OOS cost)

You may also have to add at least another $10k for MCAT prep, application fee etc. if you couldn’t get into SLU through their med scholar program (which is not a guaranteed program though it is listed as BS/MD on many websites)

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The best financial comparison to UMKC’s 6 year program would probably be public institutions within one’s home state rather than private institutions that have different funding and budgetary mechanisms. SLU gets no Missouri state legislature tuition funding support.

It also depends geographically which state you’re coming from as if you’re from parts of the South, you’re particularly likely to attend medical school in your home state, while students in several Northern states are more likely to get their medical education farther from home.

It really depends a lot on the particular state you’re coming from. Nationally, about 60% of new students in allopathic medical schools matriculated within their home state.

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@roentgen - I took SLU because it is in the same state and has a BS/MD program(sort of) that is open for all OOS students to apply. I assumed the student is in their med scholar program(should have made that clear) and manages to get in the SLU med school without any gap years.

I tried to project a best case in-state scenario with a full ride undergrad in a state with heavy instate bias and minimal competition (high chance of admission) in my earlier post. That was about half of SLU cost - $240k (based it on KU - $40k SOM tuition and another $20k living expense per year).

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So I think that’s a different calculation (not just numerical cost) for an out-of-state student, with respect to the SLU Med Scholars program (which SLU labels as an early assurance program rather than a Bachelor/MD program, but that’s more just splitting hairs). In that case, you’re effectively just comparing one Bachelor/MD program with another Bachelor/MD program.

Obviously if one has an acceptance to a Bachelor/MD program in their home state, most would choose to go there (mainly due to financial reasons) rather than UMKC’s program (even w/the saved 2 years), but that’s usually not the scenario that people are contemplating about.

For most out-of-staters who do apply to UMKC’s 6 year BA/MD program, the comparison is usually along two major aspects: time and cost. The question for the OOS student is whether to do this program or do the traditional 4+4 route (with the undergrad being done in their home state or at an undergraduate institution out-of-state where they get very good financial aid, and then going to their home state medical school).

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At least pharmacy students could get the first 2 years done elsewhere cheaper and transfer credits - may be only within MO schools. It was interesting that UMKC website itself had listed the community college option.

Didn’t realize dental schools were so expensive costs $10k more for OOS students. Assuming the following is accurate per semester, for dental school, there is only resident and non-resident tuition while pharmacy school has more or less the same tuition for resident and non-resident (I may have looked at the wrong place earlier).

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And if you look at that same page, the reason why resident and non-resident tuition is so similar for the Pharmacy school is because the latter receives a renewable nonresident award that cuts out 90% of the difference between resident & non-resident tuition. Maybe the Pharmacy school is rolling in money now too, LOL :rofl: :rofl:.

I would be curious to know why the PharmD program has something like that while the MD program does not. Maybe a current student lurking on this thread can tell us at some point.

The reason why dental schools tend to be more expensive is they tend to require students to have a lot of hands-on experience, which necessitates well-equipped dental clinics. These clinics are essentially mini-dental practices with specialized equipment for each student. Setting up and maintaining this infrastructure can be expensive. Unlike medical schools where students often shadow doctors in hospitals, dental students tend to need to purchase their own dental equipment and these instruments can be quite pricey.

Medical schools are often affiliated with teaching hospitals in an academic medical center, which generate revenue and can subsidize the cost of medical education overall. Additionally, medical students typically don’t need to purchase their own expensive equipment.

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Looks like it is the demand. It seems the demand is so low, they had to cut tuition and waive PCAT.

Perhaps most notably, AACP data have shown significant decreases in the number of students interested in pursuing pharmacy careers. In fall 2011, it found that there were 106,815 applicants to pharmacy schools, a figure that dropped to 76,525 by fall 2015 and 40,552 by fall 2021. In less than a decade, pharmacy school applications had decreased by more than 60%.
In a 2020 commentary published in the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, the authors suggested increased collaboration between schools and curriculum changes to compensate for lower revenue. For instance, smaller class sizes with new resources and reduced expenses could help pharmacy schools adjust. Additionally, some schools are attempting to attract applicants by lowering barriers to applications, such as not requiring the Pharmacy College Admission Test

So it looks like it is the basic the supply vs demand as I was speculating regarding BA/MD tuition. I noticed UIC also has the same tuition for instate and OOS pharmacy students.

I am assuming supply side for universities is fairly inelastic due to all the fixed costs. So it may be better to get students even at half the tuition if demand dropped by 60% instead of leaving those seats unfilled.

However, that doesn’t seem to apply to med school or dental school as demand keeps going up as observed in tuition rates (and number of applicants, average test scores/GPA etc.).

Btw, this was my earlier concern around the new laws to increase physician supply as it could produce similar results. Looks like pharmacy schools increased the supply organically by opening more schools. For medicine, more DO schools are opening and then there could be IMGs that completed residency in their own countries.

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Hey guys!!! So there is a student (now graduated!) at UMKC from the BA/MD program who has a really great Tik Tok page: Med Student Uses TikTok to Inspire Others | University of Missouri - Kansas City, chronicling her time in the program.

So on her page, she has one TikTok video that advertises a free :free: webinar from MedSchoolCoach on May 15th, 7 PM Eastern Standard Time (so whatever that is in your time zone) called “Beyond the Acceptance Letter: How to Thrive in Your First Year of Med School.” You can go to the link in her TikTok page bio, click on it, then click on the white “Open anyway” button (don’t worry, it’s a safe link), and then click on the “Free Webinar Registration…” button to sign up.

A lot of the stuff won’t immediately apply to you as an incoming Year 1 BA/MD student (you can just take detailed notes on that stuff and save it for later), but the other stuff like skills to avoid burnout and achieve work-life balance as a med student and choosing study resources may be helpful to you.

If you have trouble getting to it, private message me here through College Confidential and let me know.

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So one question that I’ve gotten from an incoming Year 1 student is whether it’s necessary to start studying for USMLE Step 1 during Year 1 of the UMKC BA/MD program.

For those who do not know, the USMLE is a three-step exam series for being medically licensed in the United States to practice clinical medicine. USMLE Step 1 and USMLE Step 2 CK are taken before graduating from medical school and USMLE Step 3 is generally taken during the internship year (the residency year after med school graduation). More recently, USMLE Step 1 in 2022 became a Pass/Fail exam for the first time (that’s a whole another subject altogether to discuss if people want me to talk about that).

So one thing I would say is that the UMKC 6 year program is, as the expression goes, very much a marathon, not a sprint (Transformational change is a marathon, not a sprint - PTKO). Because the program has no official “summers off,” the program is very much one in which you have to pace yourself and celebrate small victories or you’ll burn out. A lot of students feel like they have to immediately join everything and be an officer of everything (similar to high school) and start preparing for everything and that’s not really how it works. This is very much a program that humbles you in different ways, so while it’s always good to plan ahead in a broader sense, don’t let that planning ahead make you inflexible, because you’ll be very miserable if you do when something suddenly changes.

In Year 1, I would say that you DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT, need to start studying for Step 1. There are several reasons for that but a major reason is that the coursework you take in Year 1 is not even at the medical school level. The Year 1 Anatomy course (sometimes referred to by students as “Baby Anatomy”) and the Year 1 Microbiology course (sometimes referred to as “Baby Micro”) are at the undergraduate level in terms of detail & complexity. That doesn’t mean they’re a cakewalk, but your medical school courses later in those areas will build off of that knowledge.

I would concentrate more in Year 1 on learning good study skills and strategies, some of which may be new to you. One example is this spaced repetition program called Anki: https://leananki.com/college-and-beyond. Another example is the Pomodoro technique: https://dres.illinois.edu/files/2023/04/Pomodoro-Technique.pdf. Essentially you will be building off of your current study skills and strategies in high school, keeping in mind that everyone has different learning styles so what works for one person may not work for someone else. Don’t be afraid to try different or new study skills and strategies, as you’ll realize that different courses require different approaches.

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For those of you who may have missed attending the “Beyond the Acceptance Letter: How to Thrive in Your First Year of Med School” webinar yesterday, Med School Coach posted it on their Youtube channel which you can watch at your leisure.

Some of it is more MS-1 oriented (meaning those who have completed 4 years of undergrad and then enter in the MS-1 year), but a lot of these things will apply especially in Year 2 of the BA/MD program when it starts to pick up speed and you start taking medical school level courses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdw0PLvNqoA

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UMKC Financial Aid was released recently, and the tuition yet again increased from 51,392 to 55,584 (Year 1). $4200 tuition increase in one year is just absurd. Even the estimated cost of attendance is now at 78,000 rather than 71,000. This is so crazy and unfair to out of state students. Starting to get why there is such negativity regarding this school and its out of state students. Will tuition continue to increase like this year after year?

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So you can go here to see what the tuition & fees have been for the UMKC BA/MD program from year to year all the way back to 1999(!). They don’t have the one for this upcoming 2024-2025 year (what would be FY 2025) posted just yet, although it may be posting soon.

https://www.umsystem.edu/ums/fa/budget/student-fee-data (go to "Tuition and Other Enrollment Related Fees)

  • you can click on “Archives” under that heading to see what it has been from fiscal year 2019 and earlier
  • you can look under the “Percentage Change” column under the UMKC tuition rates to see what the percentage change was from the previous year.
  • “Semester” is the usual 16 week semester and “Summer” is the 8 week summer session
  • Year 1 is only the Fall & Spring semesters. Every other year includes the Fall & Spring semesters along with the Summer session as well

In the past, tuition increases have been relatively stable w/increases usually in the single digit percentages.

I would also sign up for private scholarships (through scholarship databases like Fastweb) and apply to them during Year 1 and Year 2, where you’re technically classified as an “undergraduate” student since you’re not classified as a “professional” student until Year 3.

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Healthcare and education expenses tend to rise faster than inflation.
Prior to 2022, tuition increases seem to be under 3% - slightly higher than inflation.
After 2022, tuition increases seems to be much higher reflecting the inflation. We had 9%+ inflation during 2022 which may be reflected in the tuition from 2023.

Since UMKC used to be cheaper than Mizzou (by almost 10%), they may be trying to raise the rates since schools are similarly ranked at this point. UMKC and Mizzou follow the same policy for OOS students (UMKC offers somewhat better tuition with for regional students, but Mizzou doesn’t have that tier). Mizzou MD tuition could be almost $90k/year for OOS students at this point.

Undergrad tuition may fall/stabilize after 2025, if the “enrollment cliff” materializes from lack of demand though the same may not happen with these MD courses as long as there is a strong demand. These high demand courses could subsidize other low demand ones since universities have a lot of fixed costs.

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Budget for UM system including UMKC

Let us say each OOS student pays $40k additional tuition per year compared to instate student and regional students pay $20k per year. Assuming 30 regional and 15 OOS students, additional revenue for this program from OOS students is $1.2 million - looks like a drop in the bucket (0.25%) of the overall budget, considering the total operating revenue of $466 million. What if the state forks out another $1.2 million -this may be less than an extra $1 per tax payer per year - and keeps most of the seats instate as TX did(and done by other neighboring states like KS, OK, AR etc where 90% of seats are for instate students)? Since the goal of UMKC is to educate primary care physicians for MO, I am fairly certain they can find 45 additional instate students (in a state of 6 million residents) willing to do that through 4 year or 6 year program. There are many instate students who score 32+ ACT and meet every other criteria that doesn’t make it into the program every year and I am sure tax payers may not mind putting an extra buck or two to have more doctors instate - especially for rural areas.

With the current allocation of seats, if revenue generation was the goal, probably regional and OOS should have been merged into one category so that there are 45 students paying an extra $40k.

Current state appropriation for UMKC is $88 million(and this was one of the fastest growing revenue source for UMKC as it went up 7%- $6 million+). Net tuition revenue is $149 million. So MO tax payers provide 60% of tuition revenue to UMKC. So each MO tax payer probably paid an extra $4 last year alone for UMKC in increased funding - i.e. 5 times the excess tuition revenue from regional/OOS students.

Just to contrast, Pennsylvania hasn’t increased funding to state universities in years, funding for Pitt is lower than 2007. However, UMKC doesn’t receive NIH funding at the same level as many other state schools like Pitt or IU or OSU. Hopefully, these numbers should provide some perspective to OOS students/parents who complain about the cost. May be they should lobby for more NIH funding to UMKC as alternate revenue source so that tuition can be lower.

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What happened in FY2023 that led to tuition increasing 12.5% compared to a 4-6% average increase in other years (including FY25)?

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Didn’t we have almost 10% inflation during 2022?

Monthly inflation rate U.S. 2024 | Statista.

Considering the fact that there was a 7% increase in state appropriation for UMKC in the latest budget, if instate students are paying the same increases as OOS students, then IS are effectively paying a much higher percentage of the increase - first through taxes paid by their parents and then through tuition/fees.

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You can see here, but much of it was due to a return to normal operations in the wake of the pandemic, with all federal stimulus funding now expired.

FY 2023:
https://www.umsystem.edu/sites/default/files/media/fa/budget/fy2023-operating-budget-book.pdf

FY 2024:
https://www.umsystem.edu/sites/default/files/media/fa/budget/fy2024-operating-budget-book.pdf

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@Roentgen - CARES act funding drop was $10 million between 2022 and 2023, but there was a corresponding $11 million increase from state appropriation in 2023 and 2024 - funded by MO tax payers. However, it is interesting to note that the budgeted tuition increase of 9% never materialized in 2023, if you look at the projection from 2024 (budgeted net tuition for 2023 was $143 million in 2023 report, but projection for 2023 was $137 million in 2024 report). So outside of state funding, most of the other sources are pretty flat(or negative if you add an average 6% inflation) including patient medical service revenue.

Since most of the operating expense is from salaries and benefits, those are vulnerable to inflation.

From 2024 budget report, discussion on what is driving the expense

Operating Expenses
Overall, UMKC’s operating expenses are projected to increase by 6%. Salaries and wages
are budgeted to increase by 9.3% and include the effect of a 4% performance-based merit
and market raise pool. UMKC has experienced high turnover rates and extended fill rates
for many staff positions and will utilize the raise pool to address market concerns.

From 2024 report on revenue discussion

Moody’s 2023 outlook was revised to negative from stable for the U.S. higher education
sector as operating revenue growth is expected to significantly trail inflation in 2023. High
inflation, a tight labor market, and a return to more normal operations will drive sector
expenses materially higher through the second half of 2023

Revenue growth is expected to be about 2% across the sector and lag inflation.
Institutions heavily reliant on student charges with weak student demand will face the
greatest challenges.

To move the outlook back to stable, Moody’s would need to see revenue growth
matching inflation, improved investment returns, and sound student demand with steady
enrollment.

While growth in revenues is included,
revenues are not keeping pace with inflation and budgets reflect necessary efficiency actions
to manage resources within performance targets.

If inflation remains unchanged and undergraduate enrollment(and corresponding tuition revenue) drops, there is a potential that graduate tuition like med school could continue to raise faster than inflation to support the fixed costs for the university (this scenario is not limited to UMKC, could be any university experiencing drops unless there are additional revenue streams like research grants or patient medical revenue.

If the stock market didn’t perform as well as it did in 2023 and 2024 to increase revenue from investments, it may have caused even more deficits. Private universities with rich endowment could be the beneficiaries here compared to public universities

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Here is Fitch report that seem to concur with Moody’s in a more recent report

The report, released Monday, indicates that increased labor costs and wage pressure, as well as elevated interest rates and an unclear enrollment picture, will create challenges for colleges next year. Those cumulative challenges “could weaken operating margins and strain financial flexibility,” particularly at small, less selective, tuition-dependent colleges, Fitch’s report declared.

“Flagship public universities and selective private colleges should see more favorable enrollment next year, while some regional public institutions and less-selective private schools in competitive markets may see continued softness in demand,” Fitch senior director Emily Wadhwani said in a news release. “The resumption of student loan payments, together with continued tight labor conditions, could further dampen overall enrollment prospects heading into 2024.”

The report also warns that more college closures and mergers may be on the horizon. That echoes a prediction Fitch made in September, when the ratings agency suggested that enrollment declines and other market pressures would likely prompt more institutions to go out of business.

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So one question that I’ve gotten from incoming students is whether it is worth taking some form of General Chemistry credit over the summer before coming into UMKC.

For many UMKC BA/MD students, General Chemistry I & II + Labs provide a good GPA buffer & padding, especially for the science GPA that you are required to maintain while in the UMKC BA/MD program in order to promote. This is where sometimes getting AP exam/IB exam credit can be a double edged sword (you get the credit, but not the grade points towards GPA), because then you end up being more reliant on other (harder) science courses to maintain that science GPA promotion requirement.

Just so everyone is on the same page, at UMKC:

CHEM 211 - General Chemistry I
CHEM 211L - Experimental General Chemistry I

CHEM 212R - General Chemistry II
CHEM 212LR - Experimental General Chemistry II

In order to take Gen Chem II + Gen Chem II Lab, you have to have completed (or have credit for) CHEM 211 AND CHEM 211L as they are prerequisites.

  • If you took the AP test or IB test for Chemistry this year, your score won’t be back until early July (so by that time, signing up for summer classes is likely too late).

  • What is your energy level right now? A lot of students that come into the UMKC BA/MD program are highly dedicated, hard working, ambitious students who took tons of Accelerated/Pre-AP/Honors/AP courses (or IB courses if that is what is at your school) in all 4 years of high school. In other words, they had a very rigorous curriculum, maybe even the hardest curriculum one could take as a student at their particular high school. For Honors/AP/IB English classes, often students have some type of summer reading component in the summers after 9th, 10th, and 11th grade. So by now, you may be very much exhausted and this may actually be your first REAL summer off. If this is you, I would just enjoy the summer to the fullest, considering the 6 year BA/MD program at UMKC runs year round with no official summer months off.

  • Are you taking any vacations? If so, then you may not be able to take summer classes, especially if you’re traveling internationally.

If you decide to take actual classes at a local college/university:

  • MAKE SURE the actual class you’ve signed up for actually transfers. I knew of an incident in which a BA/MD student was told by her Year 1 ETC that her General Chem I and General Chem I lab from a local community college over the summer would transfer. She then took General Chemistry II + Lab at UMKC in the Fall, and then Organic Chem 320 + 320 Lab in the Spring, thinking her summer schedule would be relatively clear, with Cell Bio as her only science. Then she suddenly found out at the end of Year 1 that in fact her transfer credit courses didn’t count. She ended up being forced to take General Chem I + Chem I Lab over the summer (keep in mind she had already finished Organic Chem) with Cell Bio.

When it comes to your undergraduate degree (whether that’s the Bachelor of Liberal Arts, Biology BA, or Chemistry BA) – it’s very much the UMKC undergraduate institution that decides, not the UMKC School of Medicine.

  • If you take the course within the University of Missouri system (UMKC, UMSL, Missouri S&T, or UM-Columbia) it COUNTS for GPA. I repeat, it COUNTS FOR GPA. So definitely take it seriously if you take it over the summer at any of these 4 institutions. Courses taken outside of the University of Missouri system do not have grade points/GPA transfer, just credit: Transfer Credit | Office of the Registrar | University of Missouri - Kansas City

In Summer 2024 — UMSL (Schedule of Classes | UMSL) and Missouri S&T (summer – Missouri S&T) seem to offer at least the General Chemistry I lecture course online, so check their public course schedules, if it’s something you may be interested in.