Top U.S. School Of Medicine Is Now Paying Tuition For All Its Med Students

The New York University School of Medicine just announced that it is offering full-tuition scholarships to all current and future students in its MD degree program regardless of need or merit—a bold effort to simultaneously address the terrible burden of debt now facing future doctors and attract the best and brightest kids to the school’s program.

The surprise was delivered last week to first-year medical students and family members at the annual ritual ceremony that presents each new student with a white lab coat to mark the start of their medical education and training.

“This decision recognizes a moral imperative that must be addressed, as institutions place an increasing debt burden on young people who aspire to become physicians,” said Robert I. Grossman, dean of the medical school and chief executive officer of N.Y.U. Langone Health.

The plan covers annual tuition of roughly $55,000 for 93 first-year students, and another 350 students who have up to three years left before obtaining their degrees.

N.Y.U. said that it had raised more than $450 million of the $600 million that it anticipates will be necessary to finance the tuition plan. About $100 million of that has been contributed by Kenneth G. Langone, the founder of Home Depot, and his wife, Elaine, for whom the medical school is named.

“We believe that with our tuition-free initiative, we have taken a necessary, rational step that addresses a critical need to train the most talented physicians, unencumbered by crushing debt,” says Grossman. “We hope that many other academic medical centers will soon choose to join us on this path.”