Student Debt Associated With Optometric Education.

Background: Many optometry students must assume a significant amount of debt to
finance their professional education. The amount of loans and their repayment schedule
can negatively impact the lives of young optometrists until they are repaid. The goal of
this study is to compare expected debt of incoming first-year optometry students to the
actual debt of graduating fourth-year students and alumni of the Michigan College of
Optometry.
Methods: First-year students, fourth-year students and alumni were anonymously surveyed to assess the amount of debt accrued before optometry school, expected/actual debt upon graduation, loan re-payment terms, other sources of funding
for school, and subjective input about how comfortable each participant feels with the
loan process.
Results: Collected data was compared via graphical analysis to determine if there was a difference between the amount of debt expected by incoming first-year students and actual debt acquired by fourth-year students and alumni.
Conclusions: The results of this study determined that incoming first-year students underestimated the amount of student loans that have been acquired by the fourth-year group. Future students may benefit from gaining a realistic idea of what their optometric education will cost before attending optometry school.