Medical Students
Financing Your Medical Education
Eighty-one percent of our medical students rely on financial assistance beyond that of their families to pay the costs associated with attendance at medical school. Seventy-one percent rely upon loans using future earnings as collateral in the form of student loans. Others opt for service-commitment scholarships, such as those offered by the Armed Services and the National Health Service Corps, thus mortgaging their future time and services rather than earnings.
Approximately 66% of those who borrow also receive scholarship assistance from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. The amount of such assistance is based upon analysis of family financial strength — the resources of student, spouse if married, and regardless of student age, marital, or IRS dependency status; their parents. In the case of divorced parents, both parents are expected to provide financial information. Parents are not, of course, required to provide financial support, but students cannot qualify without parental information. While this information is used in determining scholarship eligibility, many students borrow additional resources in lieu of parental support.
Applicants intending to seek scholarship assistance are urged to involve their parents early in the financial aid application process. Many families mistakenly assume that students at the graduate level will be aided without regard to parent circumstances and, while this may be typical for many graduate programs, it is not traditionally the case for professional programs such as medicine, law, or business.
