Quote (Thor123422 @ Apr 16 2020 01:56pm)

You are basically saying

If X then Y
and
if Y then Z

X therefore Z

but I'm pointing out that Y already exists and Z isn't happening, so X will not lead to Z.

There are already a huge abundance of medical applicants, and it hasn't lead to an increase in medical school spots opening. Therefore, further increasing medical school applicants by reducing price will not lead to an increase in spots, because we already have an abundance of medical school applicants. There's a limiting factor elsewhere that is independent of the number of students, and it's in the cost of opening medical schools and the ability of hospitals to create competent residency programs.

Additionally, medical school admission standards have gone through the fucking roof in the last 20 years, commensurate with the huge increase in applicants. Truly we could over double the number of seats available and we still wouldn't need to reduce standards to the level that was adequate just 20 years ago.



However, this gets off track. My overall point was that in our current system we have a disproportionate share of the cost of education going to the person receiving it while society overall gets a disproportionate benefit. That benefit comes in the form of a more educated populace and a greater taxation in the life of the individual. If you want to dispute this then physicians are one of the worst examples because state medical schools reduce the cost of medical school by paying for a significant portion of tuition with tax dollars so they can absorb the public good of having physicians in their state, physicians that don't take advantage of this have huge burdens in loans placed on them, and the public takes an enormous amount of good from physicians relative to the amount of work the physician puts in (the tens of thousands of extra hours of training, when you account for this the hourly pay of physicians is really really low).

Quote (thesnipa @ Apr 16 2020 02:03pm)

does reducing the price make it possible for very smart people to become a doctor that otherwise may not have? yes. so medical schools will want to get these people, and weed them out from people that are not smart just taking advantage of paid undergrad.

you dont need to open a new medical school or open a new lab for a few % increase in accepted applicants.

if your position is that in a free college meta there would be a literal zero increase in the number of medical school students accepted into medical schools, literal zero % increase, then ya idk what to tell you. because my position is that it could be as low as a 1% increase and i wouldnt be surprised. but yeah if you're betting on zero or a negative number there's not really anything i can say. i think that's beyond silly. just as it would be silly to suggest there would be a 25%+ increase.

Quote (Thor123422 @ Apr 16 2020 03:11pm)

My position is that there would be virtually no change in the number of medical school seats because seats are already being opened where they can be opened. Adding more applicants when you already have a 10:1 excess of applicants isn't going to put any more pressure to open additional seats.

Additionally, you won't see a great increase in the number of "smart people" who can get into medical school by reducing the cost because they are already so saturated. When theres a 1:2 excess you screen the top 60% of students, when there's a 10:1 excess you screen for the top 10% of students, and that's exactly what's happened. An average application today would have been a sure fire admission 20 years ago. I actually talked to a physician who was on admissions to an M.D. school until 2005 and he basically said that my MCAT score, which was decent for when I applied, would have been a virtual guarantee when he was on admissions. So maybe you end up screening for the top 5% of applicants, but that's only going to be looking at marginal differences among the highest levels of students, where minutiae won't make much of a difference to the end result.

Quote (ofthevoid @ Apr 16 2020 02:58pm)

My Univ is spending heavily currently in expanding it's medical school, literally tens of millions are flowing into new medical facilities, research, etc. Universities that are capable and have the money to do it will follow supply/demand trends. If demand for this type of education increases and now we made the education free it's logical that there will be higher demand and unis will increase capacity.

20 years ago you didn't have the globalized environment we have today. Half of the people in the masters+ programs in fields like MIS, medical, pharma, engineering, etc. are being taken up by students from India and China, so yeah many domestic students did get pushed out of consideration.

I actually regret the education route i took. If i was 20 years old i would of went into the medical field knowing what i know now. If i was 20 years old and knew that i won't have to spend 150k on medical school i for sure would change my mind and not settle in being a PT instead i'd go to medical school.

Quote (ofthevoid @ Apr 16 2020 08:58pm)

My Univ is spending heavily currently in expanding it's medical school, literally tens of millions are flowing into new medical facilities, research, etc. Universities that are capable and have the money to do it will follow supply/demand trends. If demand for this type of education increases and now we made the education free it's logical that there will be higher demand and unis will increase capacity.

20 years ago you didn't have the globalized environment we have today. Half of the people in the masters+ programs in fields like MIS, medical, pharma, engineering, etc. are being taken up by students from India and China, so yeah many domestic students did get pushed out of consideration.

I actually regret the education route i took. If i was 20 years old i would of went into the medical field knowing what i know now. If i was 20 years old and knew that i won't have to spend 150k on medical school i for sure would change my mind and not settle in being a PT instead i'd go to medical school.

Quote (dro94 @ Apr 16 2020 10:50pm)

OK made the jump today. I'm out of my global all cap index which is my main fund, like 30% of my total. Lost about 150 quid on the trade so not heavy at all from the low point.

Kept all my positions in individual shares that make up the biggest chunk of my portfolio and the bits I have in actively managed funds that I never add to anymore.

Holding more cash now to take advantage of further drops, which will come once the 2nd wave hits. Markets are just too optimistic in thinking we'll be over this by the end of summer...even everything being open but with social distancing will severely impact GDP. Planes will leave the middle seats empty, retail will have far less footfall, bars and restaurants are fucked until there's a vaccine, etc.

Quote (balrog66 @ 16 Apr 2020 16:53)

I am pretty confident I'm not knowledgeable enough to make decisions so I just HODL for now. It's not really FOMO either, I don't really have anything else to put the money in.

Quote (balrog66 @ Apr 16 2020 09:53pm)

I am pretty confident I'm not knowledgeable enough to make decisions so I just HODL for now. It's not really FOMO either, I don't really have anything else to put the money in.