Vanderbilt School of Medicine Takes Step Toward Lowering Tuition

Vanderbilt University’s medical school has effectively cut a thousand dollars from the maximum rate its students have to pay.

That’s thanks to a smaller-than-usual tuition increase, coupled with a new scholarship for any student who was paying full price.

The school says it’s a first step toward making medical education more affordable. The average medical student at Vanderbilt graduates almost $140 thousand in debt.

Bonnie Miller, senior associate dean for Health Sciences Education, says that steers a lot of students into specialties where they can earn enough to pay down their debt – and away from where they’re most needed, because they won’t earn as much working in primary care or underserved areas.

“So we feel almost a moral obligation to lower the burden of debt, so that students are more free to make the kinds of choices that allow medicine as a profession to better serve its public mission.”

The scholarship isn’t for every medical student at Vanderbilt – only those that weren’t already receiving at least $2 thousand. That’s about 180 of the 400 students there.

Miller says the down economy stopped the school from doing more for the time being. But she called this a “baby step” toward a broader goal of cutting the cost of a medical education roughly in half.

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Miller says last year tuition was $38,400. But for the first time in over ten years, it increased less than 5 percent. Miller attributes that in part to the “psychological barrier” of $40 thousand, which such an increase would have surpassed.

“So we decided to raise it 2.5 percent instead, which was basically a thousand dollar increase and kept us at $39,400.”

After that the school decided to give every student a $2 thousand grant across the board, provided they weren’t already receiving at least that much. For instance, a student with only $1 thousand in scholarship support would receive an additional thousand under the program. But a student already receiving a complete free ride would not receive an extra $2 thousand back.

As a result, the most any student is paying is $37,400 – a thousand dollars less than last year’s rate.

Miller says it’s part of what she hopes will develop into a bigger push to make Vanderbilt more accessible. She says the school has struggled with a reputation of being uninvolved.

“You know, the ‘magnolia curtain’ on 21st Avenue and West End – that we’re kind of sitting here as a little island. But that’s not how we see ourselves anymore, and we really do want to make a difference, and we want our students to make a difference.”