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Scholarships
Thanks to scholarship support, the University of Minnesota enables talented students from diverse backgrounds to pursue education and training that will prepare and inspire them to become tomorrow’s medical and health-care leaders.
Today, scholarships are more important than ever. Because of decreasing state aid and increasing costs of providing a first-rate education in public health and medicine, tuition can be a heavy burden. In spring 2009, Medical School graduates completed their M.D.s with an average debt of $180,000, while School of Public Health graduates carried an average debt of nearly $74,000.
Through the support of generous donors, 715 scholarships totaling more than $2 million were awarded to students in the Medical School and School of Public Health in fiscal year 2008. The President’s Scholarship Match—a program that matches the payout on gifts of $25,000 or more for endowed scholarships—provided nearly $564,000 more.
Such investment in scholarships strengthens the bond between a community and its students and ultimately benefits us all; notably, nearly 70 percent of the University’s health professional graduates choose to stay and practice in Minnesota.
Besides funding fellowships and training opportunities, scholarships facilitate access to the University’s rich learning environment.
They also help the Medical School maintain its national top-10 ranking in training primary-care physicians—an achievement bolstered by the school’s Duluth campus, which is dedicated to educating primary-care specialists to serve rural Minnesota and Native American communities, where health-care needs too often go unmet.
Additionally, the Minnesota Medical Foundation helps scholastically deserving students stay in school by providing grants, low-interest loans, awards for excellence, and funding for international study.
