our nephew is a research cardio MD living in Huntsville, and recently joined an advisory panel to help small mostly independent med schools. he joined the family FaceTime today and gave us an earful.
these COMs are mostly not associated with a specific university, but may have alliances with a multiple. they do not have their own health system, but may have affiliations. they lack their own research of any significance. a common feature seems to be their revenue sources cannot keep up with costs. he told us that costs have been going up over 10%/yr for several years, much caused by overhead. he mentioned LCME demands drive costs. these schools depend on tuition and donors as revenue. donor growth has been flat, and tuition growth not making up the difference.
I asked him why don't they increase tuition? he said these schools avg 62% of gross tuition and fees. we asked why not 100%??? the line for med school is miles long. these students can all get 100% loans. he said the advisory group did not even look at this idea.
this is not impacting Duke where he went, or Penn State but trending to next tier.
these COMs are mostly not associated with a specific university, but may have alliances with a multiple. they do not have their own health system, but may have affiliations. they lack their own research of any significance. a common feature seems to be their revenue sources cannot keep up with costs. he told us that costs have been going up over 10%/yr for several years, much caused by overhead. he mentioned LCME demands drive costs. these schools depend on tuition and donors as revenue. donor growth has been flat, and tuition growth not making up the difference.
I asked him why don't they increase tuition? he said these schools avg 62% of gross tuition and fees. we asked why not 100%??? the line for med school is miles long. these students can all get 100% loans. he said the advisory group did not even look at this idea.
this is not impacting Duke where he went, or Penn State but trending to next tier.