I'm sure a lot of you guys have seen my comments. But I just wanted to make this post since I've seen an upswing in comments/posts where folks are debating a option with significant private loans, and one without the same burden. As a bit of context, I'm a current med student, and not a citizen/PR which made me ineligible for federal loans. As such, I chose to fund my med school journey through private loans, and chose a relatively expensive program over a near-full tuition scholarship, a decision I deeply regret.

The most important thing I want to say is Private lenders are under NO obligation to loan to you. This creates a unique risk profile, and a gap that has never been seen before. People will genuinely not be able to obtain funds for medical school which is a nightmare. This has happened to me, and this risk goes beyond high APRs, beyond the shitty terms of private loans, the lack of forgiveness etc. (which are very real cons and also make private loans a poor financial decision). Honestly my personal recommendation would be to go wherever you can have fewer private loans. The more you need to borrow the harder it is to access the funds, and even seemingly small differences on the surface can really start to matter when you get into private loans. Also, as your borrowing increases, it's much harder to get the funds, and seemingly random changes (i.e. cosigner gets a mortgage) can impact your ability to borrow

Also to my lower and middle class students, please realize that medicine will be a huge culture shock. About 2/3 of my class has parents covering tuition or full COA. Of course a free tuition offer wouldn't matter at that point lol. I myself coming from a lower middle class background, and growing up poor want to commend you on making it to medical school. But a lot of advice, while well intentioned, doesn't apply to us. Regardless of what specialty you want to go into, please seriously consider your debt. Making it into something competitive is never guaranteed, and every specialty has less than half of the matched applicants coming from T40 NIH funded schools. (Ortho is like a third). Any MD will get you where you want to go, and most actual physicians wish they minimized loan burden.