With the U.S. facing a forecasted deficit of at least 86,000 physicians by 2036, medical school student debt is attracting more attention.
Last year, medical students in the U.S. graduated with an average debt of $206,924 — a number that for many interested in becoming a physician weighs on specialty decisions or whether to pursue a career in medicine at all.
Here are four more medical school debt data points and trends to know:
- Data from the Association of American Medical Colleges shows 70% of students in the class of 2023 graduated with educational debt. Of those, 84% incurred more than $100,000 in debt. Fifty-four percent graduated with at least $200,000 in debt.
- At some schools, students incur more than $270,000 in debt. A breakdown on medical schools where graduates incur the highest and lowest average debt can be found here.
- Major donor gifts to medical schools remain relatively rare and thus attract public interest when they occur. Most recently, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced a $1 billion donation to Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University, waiving tuition for students from families earning less than $300,000 a year.
- Sizable donations to medical schools that enable universities to waive tuition fees stand to both cast a wider net for future physicians, and expand the breadth of their specialty considerations, leaders told Becker's in July, responding to news of the Bloomberg gift. For instance, if students enter medical school knowing they will not have hundreds of thousands of dollars in loan debt, they may choose to go into primary care versus a higher-paying specialty.
"Not having that as an additional complexity to decision-making allows for a greater opportunity to think about what specialty … you enjoy and have an expertise in," said David Marcozzi, MD, chief clinical officer and senior vice president of Baltimore-based University of Maryland Medical Center.