Why Are American Doctors Paid So Damn Much?

[Xithras]

31. Sure, if you want to forgo that middle class lifestyle.

We're not talking low interest loans here. My daughter will be facing loan payments of over $2700 a month when she graduates. That immediately means that she will NOT be able to serve any low income areas or take on any "low-return" clients.

You also have to remember that the average person doesn't even get into medical school until they're 24-25 years old, which means that the typical student won't graduate until they're 29 or so. Tack on the year of residency, and now you're 30 before you can even START paying them off. And remember that your loans have been racking up interest this entire time, so the total has been increasing every year you're not in a practice. If it takes you 30 years to pay off that medical school debt at 7.5% interest, you're going to be out around a half-million dollars. If you go with a more aggressive payoff route like my daughter is, you can get it paid off in 10 years...but she'll still be FORTY before she's got that loan paid off.

Of course, normal people don't want to wait until they're 40 to buy a house, or start a family, or start their retirement funds. The median home price in the SF Bay Area, near where she grew up and where much of our family already lives, is over $500,000. So, if she buys a perfectly average home in a perfectly average neighborhood at 30 years old like any perfectly average person would, she's now nearly three-quarters of a million dollars in debt.

Yes, doctors make a lot of money, but in a lot of the country they HAVE TO just to live the same kind of lifestyle that others do on a smaller salary.

It's entirely true that she'll end up making a LOT of money over the course of her lifetime, but most doctors don't actually become financially well off until they get into their 50's and 60's, when the debt finally clears. Your typical doctor in his/her 30's and 40's doesn't really live a posh lifestyle. They have far too much debt to do that.