Medical student-loan debt is a reality for most future physicians. A survey of 2024 graduating medical students conducted by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) found that two-thirds of respondents graduated with debt. About half of those respondents said their medical student-loan debt load is $150,000 or more.
For many medical students, that debt will be paid off slowly in the first decade of their careers in practice. But that burden can be reduced with medical school scholarships that students can apply for prior to beginning their training—and as they go through medical school.
Mark Meyer, MD, is a senior associate dean for student affairs at the University of Kansas Medical Center. He offered some tips on how students should go about finding medical school scholarships.
Scholarships are common
The AAMC survey found that 65% of graduating medical student respondents had some form of financial assistance—grants, stipends or scholarships—that was not a loan. The scholarship totals that medical students were awarded were generally lower, with 27% of respondents listing their total scholarship funding of less than $25,000. Meanwhile, 9% of respondents said their total scholarship funding was between $25,000–$49,999. A bit more than one-quarter of respondents listed their scholarship total to be $50,000 or greater.
The work to build up scholarships is often going to be labor-intensive, requiring students to apply for a number of programs to cobble together their medical school funding.
“Every cent does count,” Dr. Meyer said. “While $3,000 doesn’t seem like it’s making a dent if you are paying $30,000, $40,000 or $50,000 in tuition each year. It can add up.”
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Merit-based scholarships are uncommon
About 70% of medical students, per the AAMC survey, entered medical school without prior educational debt. Some of the reason behind that is going to be that undergraduate merit-based scholarships are frequently awarded. At the medical school level, significant merit-based scholarships are less frequent.
“Medical schools absolutely try to give as much scholarship money as possible to students, but unlike undergraduate institutions, medical schools spread it around more evenly among all of their students,” he said.
“For medical students coming from undergrad, they may have been an elite student, but in medical school everybody is. It makes it much more difficult to find merit-based scholarships. It’s not impossible, though.”
The University of Kansas School of Medicine is a member of the AMA UME Curricular Enrichment Program, which provides on-demand education through a micro-learning approach to help medical students distinguish themselves for residency and succeed in medicine. Educators can assign specific elements such as health care business fundamentals and developing leadership skills and receive reports on student progress, track via a dashboard, send reminder emails and customize reports.
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Draw on your medical school’s resources
Upon admission, medical schools are typically going provide students with information on available scholarships. That is not the only avenue, however.
Every medical school has an office of financial aid that is going to be a resource for students looking for scholarship funding. Dr. Meyer advocates having conversations with staffers in that department on a semiregular basis.
“I never hesitate to have a conversation with the director of financial aid or somebody in that office,” said Dr. Meyer, an AMA member. “These are the experts—they will guide a student through a number of avenues for possible funding.”
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Look beyond your medical school
Your medical school is often the first stop on a journey to find scholarship funding, but it certainly should not be your only one. Dr. Meyer advised looking for third party organizations—typically nonprofits—that offer scholarship funding for graduate-level education.
“I’ve written a number of letters for students to organizations that offer scholarship funding,” Dr. Meyer said.
“If you’re looking for those types of outside organizations, start your search with any organization that might have provided funding. Then as simple as it sounds, I’d do a Google search and talk to your classmates about where they might be getting funding.”
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Never stop searching
The scholarships you have as an M1 don’t have to be the only scholarships you get. Dr. Meyer advised medical students to keep having conversations with their financial aid staffers and keep looking.
“Never leave a dollar on the table,” Dr. Meyer said. “Even toward the end of medical school, there are entities that want students to apply for scholarships, and not having an awareness or thinking they would not receive it, students don’t apply.”
“I would dare say,” he added, “that if you complete one application you've done the hard work—because a lot the process of is copy, paste and modify. You can push out a lot of applications doing it that way and potentially reap some rewards.”
One option for medical students to consider: The AMA Foundation Physicians of Tomorrow scholarship program, which distributes $10,000 in tuition assistance scholarships to medical students approaching their final year of school. Applications open on Oct. 21, 2024, and close on Feb. 28, 2025.
