I'm gonna be honest though - even if CNUCOM is corrupt, it's hard for me to care anymore. Why? Well, first of all the other medical schools aren't much better. Lots of schools charge 50k+ in tuition. Sure, they have federal loans, but you have to admit there's no reason why tuition should be that high other than greed. Don't give me that BS that it's expensive to train students and medical schools actually lose money blahblahblah. Pretty much every movie "loses" money and yet somehow the directors, producers and actors get millions. I see no difference between movie executives and medical school leadership other than the fact that movie executives are at least honest enough to not pretend that they have the moral high ground.
The increases in price of tuition have vastly outpaced inflation. In 2002, tuition at UCSD was $10,000. In 2016 dollars, that's $13,200 [1]. And yet somehow tuition is now $37,000 a year. [2] I wish I could do a more detailed analysis but frankly that would take longer than I consider to be practical.
Also, the AAMC screwed us as premeds so hard that having an organization dedicated to putting students first is a foreign concept. Let's just consider the MCAT. For prep material alone, the profit margin is ridiculous. The MCAT prep bundle is around $200 [3]. In 2015, 60,000 people took the MCAT [4]. That's $12,000,000 per year on prep material alone. I'm willing to bet that most of that it straight profit - unless it really took millions of dollars to create the material (highly doubtful). Also, the material only needs to be created once. After that it really is straight profit. That's just prep material, too. As most of you well know, it also costs $300 to take the MCAT, which is pretty much unheard of among standardized tests.
Just look at this dude's face.
We'll call him "Greedy Darrell". You're looking at "Greedy" Darrell G. Kirch, the CEO of the AAMC, and he certainly looks like one smug little bastard. I have no idea how much Greedy Darrell makes in a year, but I'm certain it's in the millions.
One of my goals as a doctor will be to rally against the unfettered corruption in the medical training pipeline. I know it's easier said than done, but I for one think it's simply reprehensible that this rampant greed goes unchecked.
1:
https://services.aamc.org/tsfreport...ee_sort&year_of_study=2002&select_control=PUB
2:
https://services.aamc.org/tsfreport...ee_sort&year_of_study=2016&select_control=PUB
3:
https://members.aamc.org/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?Action=Add&ObjectKeyFrom=1A83491A-9853-4C87-86A4-F7D95601C2E2&WebCode=PubDetailAdd&DoNotSave=yes&ParentObject=CentralizedOrderEntry&ParentDataObject=Invoice Detail&ivd_formkey=69202792-63d7-4ba2-bf4e-a0da41270555&ivd_prc_prd_key=D13FF245-D0AE-4A02-B617-21B1A4387DA7
4:
https://www.aamc.org/download/454206/data/mcatatglance2015.pdf