Overwhelming Medical Schools and Healthcare Costs

The average financial debt among students that recently graduated medical school within the U.S. is almost $217,000 as of 2025. Additionally, more than a third of U.S. households had healthcare debts, with 21 percent of those having a past-due medical bill in 2024. 

Even in recent decades, the prices of healthcare services and education continue to remain problematically expensive. While the trend of increasing costs is ubiquitous, the field of medicine has become exceptionally disproportionate in its expenses toward both the general public and many prospective healthcare professionals. Currently, a career in medicine has become a high-risk profession among students, discouraging potential doctors and scientists. Most importantly, many individuals take caution when it comes to handling health complications, often dismissing seeking treatment in hopes of avoiding unexpected hospital bills. These costs have become increasingly unaffordable for the majority of people, leading to various discussions and potential crises. This calls into question: are the expenses for both the health industry and medical education justified? Or are they utterly unwarranted?

Currently, pursuing a major in certain fields of medicine and science can potentially pose a financial burden in the future lives of many aspiring doctors and scientists. A common trend perceived by the public is the demand for higher education. Generally, as the world’s population continues to grow, the number of students applying for universities and medical schools increases. As a result, not only does competition rise between colleges to colleges and students to students, but so does demand for better modes of education in order to support these vast numbers. Only a limited number of students are accepted from a wide pool of applicants, meaning that the availability of quality education is limited. Fortunately, over the past few years, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been continuously developed and used to this day to combat the given constrained circumstances, applying to all kinds of careers and academic areas. MOOCs, in the context of the medical field, are simply various online courses that aim to provide accessible, effective, and affordable learning for prospective healthcare professionals, students, and even patients. Due to its “e-learning” capabilities, MOOCs expand quality education for healthcare interns and trainees without having to be affected by logistics and attendance.

Regarding the cost of medical schools, the core issue behind these expensive tuitions and costs over time is the accumulation of burden and its effects on medical students’ mental and financial health, caused by the idea of unpredictability and often a blinded perception of total fees and costs. Such concern calls for improvement in transparency and communication. This directly contributes to both the rates of student loans and the rates of dropouts in medical schools. Additionally, these factors also contribute to the growing disproportion of specialties in the healthcare system, with students often avoiding primary care such as pediatrics, obstetrics, family medicine, etc. It is safe to say that there is also a growing income disparity between generalists and specialists, with only around one-third of licensed physicians focused solely on primary care. As a result, there has been little to no effort to combat the detrimental effects of such high prices in medical education, backed up by the notion that healthcare professionals have high salaries, dismissing the need for medical schools to even take steps in regulating or justifying high costs. This idea of “high risks, high reward” undermines the complexity behind the problems revolving around expensive medical tuition. This also applies to undergraduate study costs, with other majoring areas like philosophy and journalism often being avoided due to concerns of student loans and future income. 

However, it is important to take note that both universities and medical schools’ fundings are also involved in the student’s tuition fee. While the growing demand for medical education is a relevant factor for the increase in such tuition, there is a common trend for medical schools to add to student fees to include funding for their own private institutionalized university research. Not only does it dismiss the colleges’ main purpose of providing quality education and support, but it also brings up the fact that if much of these unnecessary fees were sent to a cause in the interests of students, then it could have reduced overall student tuition and perhaps further improved the accessibility of education. Additionally, further incentives for maintaining a level of prestige among medical schools and their parent universities increase the need for funding for the establishment of simulation centers, clinical science buildings, and art facilities, which may significantly affect student tuition without having a considerable influence on the quality of education provided. The prioritization of research interests often overshadows the school’s clinical and teaching commitments, aiming only to bring in and attract renowned researchers and star alums for potential research grants. In the end, the factors culminate in the idea that applying to medical school often carries huge financial risks. 

In addition, concerns regarding the U.S. healthcare system and its affordability to consumers and patients have skyrocketed. In fact, the healthcare system in the country can be classified as the only one among all other nations to be specifically driven by private profit. The U.S. spent an estimated amount of $4.9 trillion on healthcare in 2023. Stakeholders involved in the healthcare system are mostly driven to earn profit over both the well-being of patients and improving healthcare outcomes, possibly contributing to the costs and additional consequences of the complex system. Monopolies in the pharmaceutical industry, especially those that are unregulated, are clear illustrations of profit-driven systems that have the potential to put patients at risk. Certain essential clinical drugs like insulin can be highly expensive for the average citizen because of major companies such as Sanofi-Aventis and NovoNordisk managing most of the markets. In general, the various sectors of the healthcare industry all have a role to play in this rising complexity, with numerous scapegoats and blame occurring all around the system. 

This transitions into another concerning, central issue: the “misaligned incentives” of said stakeholders. Oftentimes, other factors interfere with the goal of providing quality and satisfactory healthcare to patients. For example, pharmaceutical manufacturers would sometimes focus on generating sufficient income to be able to successfully produce profit against research, development, and marketing costs. Another concrete example would be healthcare insurers under companies, who are tasked with generating more revenue compared to what the company spends on its customers. When it comes to the issue regarding the high costs, everyone involved is particularly at fault to some extent, yet they refuse to accept such a form of responsibility. 

While these factors may have a role in these growing costs, the patients themselves also have an impact on the complexity of the system. Constrained by economic circumstances, the majority of patients assume some form of entitlement in spending as little as possible when it comes to healthcare, expecting usual coverage by a third-party provider such as the government or a health insurance company. With little motivation to provide some form of investment, patients are limited in their participation to possibly reduce the amount of fees. Patients, either misled by advertisements or entirely occupied by work, also often pursue expensive options such as pills or medications that can come as “effective” and “easier” ways rather than committing to actions that take effort, such as changing their dietary routines, exercise habits, etc. The choices of the consumer are inhibited in some way by capitalistic factors and incentives when they shouldn’t be at all. 

The subsidization of the government is most likely a viable solution to this concurring problem, meaning that the idea of the government “investing” in the people can be a resolution to combat the complexities behind the rising costs of healthcare and medical education. Even so, tackling the problem is tricky—many central factors that revolve around these systems often call for them to be separated from one another in order to accommodate and provide alternatives to these various issues. Despite this, it is up to the general public whether further actions must be taken to ensure better service and accessibility for the future generations of our society.