debtmedical.co.uk

“Governments use student debt surveys to decide new policies like top-up fees. The policies are often applied to all students regardless of the discipline. They ignore the fact that medical students spend around two years longer studying. This is why medical students need their own finance survey” says the British Medical Association (BMA).

BMA debt modeling predicts that if the cap on fees was to be raised to £7000, those medical students studying outside London would run up almost £57,000 worth of Student Loans Company debt, peaking at over £73,000 eight years after they graduate. After 25 years, over £13,000 would still have to be written off. This scenario would be disastrous for medical students and would not bring expected savings for any Government.

Under a system where tuition fees could be as high as £15,000 a year, levels of graduate debt are likely to reach crippling levels at around £90,000 and take over 31 years to pay off.

In addition, the Government uses a higher measure of inflation (The Retail Price Index) to calculate interest on student loans than it does to calculate public service workers pay (the Consumer Price Index). This will adversely affect all students, as their salary will not keep pace with increases in their student loans leading to increased debt and money worries for medical Doctors.

Recommendation 4 from the 2009-10 BMA Review of Higher Education Funding says “ Students studying medicine should have their total fees capped at the same level as students on three year undergraduate programme. This should ensure that they are not further disadvantaged on top of the loss of income already suffered by studying for additional years.”

Furthermore, there is no alternative route into the medical profession without studying medicine at medical university.

Although certainly not the only factor, concern about debt has a major adverse impact on decisions about applying to higher education. A recent study, commissioned by the Sutton Trust17, found that almost two thirds of students deciding not to pursue Higher Education cited avoiding debt and money worries as a major factor in their decision.

In fact a recent article in the Telegraph reports that Medical students are having to borrow almost £16,000 from their parents to get through their degrees, in what doctors’ leaders have dubbed a “hidden tax” on families.

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