New York University offers free Tuition to all Medical Students

[alexf.1990]

This is much needed as perhaps more doctors will do more family and internal medicine that is traditionally less pay that some subspecialities. Some (not all) choose lucrative medical fields in part because they know they could pay off debt faster and make the 10 years of education worth it. With no debt, more options become available. Kudos to NYU and benefactors that made it happen.

More people are going to apply for NYU and the admissions standards will undoubtedly increase. This will bring more prestige to NYU, which will attract better professors, which attracts better students, which brings more prestige to NYU, and on we go. This work outs well for NYU in the long term. I don't know if its so clear that it will incentivize students to enter less lucrative fields though.

This is definitely going to create a wonderful natural experiment. Do you think that the specialty doctors end up choosing is more of a financial choice, or based on what doctors find interesting or challenging? I know there's a component of both in the decision, but I would think the decision would weigh the preferences of the doctors more, particularly with doctors competitive enough to aim for tough schools like NYU. This tuition plan will increase competition for admissions to NYU. I wonder if attracting more competitive applicants will end up attracting more of the people who go into lucrative, challenging specialties.

From my rough review of the field, it looks like the major impediment to filling the underserved fields is the AMA's arbitrary limit on the number of medical schools and residencies. Its a difficult problem, because an increase in the number of doctors lowers wages for existing doctors, so the AMA has an incentive to avoid increasing the number of doctors. We can see this directly in their response to the increase in nurse practitioners as a way to ease the shortage of doctors:

"The American Medical Association (AMA) is disappointed by the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) unprecedented proposal to allow advanced practice nurses (APRN) within the VA to practice independently of a physician's clinical oversight, regardless of individual state law." (https://www.ama-assn.org/ama-statement-v...ice-nurses)

We're in a bizarre situation where the advocacy group for doctors is in control of how many doctors are allowed into the job market, and actively opposes any effort to ease the artificial shortage their protectionist policies create.