I was Lucky as a medical student. When I was at medical school, I paid no fees and also received a grant for living expenses. As a result I qualified with minimal debt. Did this happen during more prosperous times? No - it happened in the 1980s in Ireland when the country was still in the grip of a deep recession. Today our leaders talk of the economic necessity of tuition fees and student loans to enable the payment of those fees, however economic necessity is probably less today than it was 25 years ago. Truly it is more a political necessity than an economic one. Over the past 15 years I have often worried about the effect of tuition fees and loans on medical education. Student debt will put prospective students off medicine; it will discourage diversity; and it will encourage junior doctors to think more about the earning potential of different medical careers than about what they might like to do, or what they might be good at, or what the country's population needs. But political circumstances make me think again. At present all the major political parties have signed up to the concept of tuition fees and student loans.
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