US Medical School Finances

Abstract

This 31st review of medical school finances reports current revenue and expenditure patterns for US medical schools and identifies trends in the financing of medical education in the United States. The interval covered by this series of reports can be seen as two distinct periods: the 21 years between academic years 1958-1959 and 1978-1979 and the 10 years between academic years 1979-1980 and 1989-1990, the latest full year for which data are available. The first period was characterized by large absolute and relative increases in all aspects of medical education (Table 1). The number of schools grew by almost 50%; the number of candidates for professional and academic doctorates doubled and tripled, respectively; the number of postdoctoral students mushroomed; and the number of full-time faculty almost quintupled. While these measures of medical school activity were increasing so substantially, medical school expenditures increased even faster, growing by a factor of 17.5