MD Student Portal

Financial Literacy and Scholarships

Professionalism Reporting

The Keck School of Medicine of USC is committed to assisting students in realizing their educational and professional goals while equipping them with the tools to effectively manage this investment.  Informed students make better choices and are better able to cope with often complex financial circumstances. We work in conjunction with the University’s Office of Financial Aid to provide our students with information that will help them navigate the nuances of financing their medical school educations.

We also, in our effort to empower Keck students in their financial decision-making practices, seek to provide education that extends beyond typical debt management and loan repayment.  We aim to provide students with information on credit, budgeting, identity theft prevention, and buying a home.  To that end, we offer sessions from third-party experts in these fields whose sole goal is to offer you valuable financial tools and knowledge.  Additionally, USC now offers all students a free lifetime membership to iGrad, a financial literacy program designed to provide you a wealth of information on numerous financial topics.

Finally, we have various scholarships that are available to medical students through generous donors that we are able to make available to our students.  These scholarships are awarded based on criteria that include: academic merit, research, interests, community service, leadership, professionalism, need, etc.  Students will be notified of these scholarship opportunities by the Office of Student Affairs along with periodic notifications regarding outside scholarship opportunities.

For assistance, please contact the Office of Student Affairs at medstuaf@usc.edu.

If you are experiencing a financial hardship, you may be eligible for funding through the Physician’s Aid Program. For additional information about the program and to access, if eligible, the application, please click here.

  • Overview
    The Office of Student Affairs is committed to supporting our students in understanding, identifying, and securing funding to support their medical education. We are committed to providing students the opportunity to expand their knowledge about personal financial wellbeing through financial literacy programming. Student sessions will include personal budgeting, debt management and repayment plans and other topics to support student finances.

     

     Goals
    The goal of the financial literacy program is to support Keck students with local resources and bring awareness to the AAMC’s Financial Information, Resources, Services, and Tools (FIRST). This resource is an excellent resource for medical students to broaden their access to funding resources and strategies.

     

    Description of the Services
    The financial literacy program will provide essential financial resources like budgeting basics and tips, debt management & repayment plans, managing your credit, and other topics!

     

  • Keck Scholarships
    Keck offers scholarships to continuing students based on various criteria including:

    • Academic Merit
    • Demonstrated Leadership
    • Community Service
    • Specialty Interest & Match
    • Research

    Generally, students may apply for these scholarships in the Spring semester, and students selected for scholarships will have their award applied directly to their student accounts in the next academic year. The Office of Student Affairs will notify students when the applications open.

     

    Outside Scholarships
    Students are encouraged to seek out outside scholarships in an effort to reduce overall student loan indebtedness.  Free scholarship search engines are a great resource for locating these opportunities–some include:

    When applying to outside scholarships do not focus solely on large scholarships as they are often inundated with applicants, thus reducing the probability of receiving them.  Instead, apply for all scholarships large and small. Multiple smaller scholarships can result in a significant reduction in a student’s overall loan indebtedness.

     

    National Health Service Corps (NHSC)
    The National Health Service Corps offers scholarships to medical students committed to primary care and willing to work in an underserved area.  The scholarship pays tuition, fees, educational costs, and provides a living stipend in return for service in a high-need urban, rural, or frontier community across the nation.

    For more information about this scholarship opportunity, please visit the NHSC website.

     

    Armed Forces Scholarships
    The armed forces (i.e. Airforce, Army, Navy and Coast Guard) also provide scholarships to medical student in return for service.  These scholarships cover tuition, fees, educational costs, and a living stipend.

    For more information about these opportunities, go to www.military.com.

  • In addition to managing your student loans via the various loan repayment plans that are available to you, you might also look into student loan forgiveness programs that can be utilized to eliminate all, or a portion of, your student loan indebtedness. These programs can be sensible approach to  managing student loan debt, especially for those students confronted with the prospect of taking out larger loan amounts.

    There is, however, a tradeoff to proceeding with a forgiveness program: fewer employment options.  Most programs will require that a participant work in an area of high need or for a non-profit agency.  This can, of course, impact your pay, specialty, location, and employer. Nevertheless, if you are willing to make these concessions, student loan forgiveness programs can lead to great financial relief over time. Some notable loan forgiveness programs that are available to graduates of medical school include:

    To access a searchable database that provides detailed information about many of the state and federal programs available to medical students, please visit the AAMC’s website.