Life Off-Label

I don’t want to scare anyone away, but I thought I’d post some numbers as a way of giving people a rough idea of just how much professional school costs these days. If you have super rich parents or won the lottery, then this doesn’t apply to you. But the rest of us have to rely on taking out loans, and though pharmacists make good money, the cost is rising much faster than pharmacists’ incomes. I also want to point out that, as an out-of-state student, I am on the high end of the cost spectrum. Those attending private schools can expect similar numbers, but most in-state tuition for public colleges will be a little cheaper.

This year I took out a little less than $60,000 to pay for out-of-state tuition, fees, books, and basic living expenses. Working during school really isn’t an option for me. My schedule is busy enough as it is, and it wouldn’t be worth it if I overwhelmed myself, failed a class, and had to take out more loans to retake the class again in the summer. Ideally, I can work over the summers and save a little money as well as try to get as many scholarships as I can, but for the sake of painting a worst-case scenario, I’ll leave that out of the equation. I also have some debt from undergrad that I’m deferring for four years, and including that, I’ll estimate my total debt at about $250,000. Basically, for what I’ll pay for pharmacy school, I could have taken out a mortgage on a really nice house.

To most people, that’s an insane amount of money to borrow for school. Admittedly, when I actually think about it, I wonder if I’m nuts. Frankly, I probably wouldn’t have done it if pharmacists didn’t make the kind of money that they do because it just wouldn’t be feasible to pay the money back in a reasonable amount of time. I used a student loan calculator I found online to estimate monthly payment based on a 6.8% interest rate (which the majority of my loans have). When I graduate, I want to try and repay mine back within ten years, which puts me at about $2900 per month.

Yikes! That’s more than I made in a month working full-time as a tech! Thankfully, pharmacists make a lot more than techs, so let’s assume I start out at a $100K salary. After taxes (assuming I live in Texas, I’ll have no state income tax), 401K contributions, and benefits deductions, that might net me around $70,000, which is a little less than $6,000 a month. After paying my student loans, that leaves me around $3,000 a month for rent, bills, fun times, etc. Some people might scoff at that, but I was able to live pretty comfortably on 2/3 of that, so to me it’s not the end of the world. If people want, they can do the 25-year plan and keep more of their money per month, but in the long run you pay a lot more in interest.

These obviously aren’t exact numbers, but the point is that if you were hoping to go on a shopping spree after pharmacy school, this is something worth considering. However, if pharmacy is truly your passion, you’re by no means living in a box after graduation. It’s a lot of debt, but you can do it. On the bright side, this will probably deter a lot of the people who would only go into pharmacy for the money, and I’m fine with that.