Workers Revolutionary Party - Medical students ‘deep in debt’

The News Line: News Thursday, 8 April 2010 Medical students ‘deep in debt’

Medical students ‘tent’ protest at a BMA Annual Representation Meeting – now facing huge increases in fees and massive bills when they graduate

Parents are facing a hidden £15,000 bill to send their children to medical school, says a new BMA report.

Many families are being forced to find an average of £3,123 a year – an estimated £15,000 over a five-year medical course – to get their children through medical school, owing to spiralling levels of debt and the impact of tuition fees, a BMA report published yesterday said.

The BMA’s latest medical student finance report surveyed 1,987 students across the UK about their finances.

Key additional findings from the report include:

Junior doctors who graduated in 2009 left medical school with an average debt of £22,851 – up by a fifth since 2008.

The number of students entering medicine from low income groups remains poor, with just one in twenty medical students coming from the lowest two income groups.

Louise McMenemy, the BMA’s student finance lead, said: ‘The UK is facing a growing crisis in medical student finance that many policy makers appear unwilling to address.

‘Levels of medical graduate debt have grown by a fifth to more than £22,000 in just one year owing in part to the increasing burden of tuition fees, as well as rising accommodation and other costs.

‘The expense of studying medicine now means that many families are facing what is effectively a hidden, unadvertised tax of around £3,000 a year – the average amount that parents currently have to give their children to get them through medical school.

‘This equates to an estimated £15,000 over the five year medical degree course, a sum that many middle income, as well as low income families may find difficult to find during a time of recession, especially if they have other children who plan to go to university.

‘It is vital that these huge financial burdens are not exacerbated by any further rise in tuition fees.

‘This move would be a disaster, as we are already facing a situation where the NHS risks being denied the services of talented individuals with the ability, but not the bank balance, to get them through medical school,’ McMenemy concluded.