A Message from Dean Sullivan-Marx about tuition for medical and nursing education

Dear colleagues,

By now you’ve likely heard the exciting news from NYU School of Medicine that all current and future medical students are receiving full tuition scholarships. We heartedly congratulate our colleagues on this historic accomplishment—a goal of the School of Medicine for the past decade—which was possible thanks to the generosity of more than 2,500 supporters, including trustees, alumni, and friends, who donated hundreds of millions of dollars to enable all of the University’s medical students to have a tuition-free education.

The American Association of Medical Colleges has been challenging schools of medicine to make their education more affordable as the debt incurred by the extended training of physicians has taken a toll on the workforce. Overwhelming student debt has steered many medical school graduates toward high-paying specialties, drawing talent away from less lucrative fields like primary care and research. The cost of medical school may also deter young people—including those from diverse backgrounds—from considering becoming physicians altogether which is not good for the nation’s health and wellness. By eliminating tuition costs, NYU School of Medicine is doing its part to address these issues by freeing up its graduates to pursue careers in critical fields and diversifying the physician workforce.

We’ve heard from several alumni and others in the Meyers community about their excitement for our colleagues at the School of Medicine as well as their curiosity about whether tuition-free education could become a reality at other schools. And while we are unable to offer this level of financial support, NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing has also made affordability a priority and we’ve made great strides in several areas to bring down costs without compromising quality.

One key success has been the transformational gift from the Rory and Howard Meyers Family Foundation and the creation of the Meyers Scholarship Program. In 2016, the Meyers family donated $30 million—the largest gift ever to an established school of nursing—three quarters of which is being used exclusively for student scholarships. As the gift comes to fruition over the next eight years, we will be able to support all tuition and fees, plus room and board, for one-third of our traditional undergraduate students. We were thrilled to welcome our first two Meyers Scholars last year, and will welcome three more this fall, who are receiving full scholarships covering tuition, fees, and room and board. We continue to strive for more scholarships for all undergraduate and accelerated nursing students.

This year, we also began offering four years of full funding (free tuition and, for some, a stipend) to our full-time nursing PhD students. We’ve now caught up to our peer nursing schools, which offer similar amounts of funding, and therefore can help attract the top PhD nursing students to NYU Meyers. 

While we share NYU School of Medicine’s commitment to affordability, it’s worth noting that medical and nursing education have differences. Nursing schools have larger classes (we have nearly 1,600 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral nursing students, while NYU School of Medicine has less than 450). Federal support for nursing, medicine, and health professionals has fluctuated over the years based on priorities and needs. When I was a nurse practitioner student in 1978, federal grants and foundations paid for my tuition. However, at that time, there were less than 10,000 NPs in the country. That investment and those monies succeeded in creating a current NP workforce of 250,000. Now federal dollars for nursing are available for development of new programs and underserved areas plus doctoral funding for growth of nursing faculty, which is in a dire shortage.

We applaud our colleagues at NYU Langone for enabling medical students to pursue careers without worrying about debt, for striving to make the School of Medicine more inclusive and equitable, and for charting a course that hopefully will be followed by other schools. At NYU Meyers, we recognize that there is more work to be done to ensure the success of the nursing workforce, and hope the wonderful news from the School of Medicine creates momentum for finding—and funding—innovative solutions to reduce the cost of higher education. 

Regards,

Dean Eileen Sullivan-Marx