Medical school cost estimates online are usually a single average number, or a school-specific sticker price with no sense of the national trend. AAMC's own Tuition and Student Fees Report -- a real annual survey of every accredited MD-granting school -- gives both: where costs actually sit today, and how fast they've moved.
What medical school actually costs right now
For the 2025-2026 academic year, average total first-year cost (tuition, fees, and health insurance combined) breaks down as:
- Public, resident: $43,016
- Public, nonresident: $68,032
- Private, resident: $68,342
- Private, nonresident: $69,789
The headline gap is the public-resident discount -- being a resident at a public medical school in your own state costs roughly $25,000 less per year than every other category, which lands within about $1,800 of each other. Once you're paying nonresident public rates, there's very little financial difference left between attending a public school out of state and attending a private school at all.
The 12-year trend: up across every category, but not evenly
Looking back to 2013-2014, every category has grown, but not at the same rate. Public-resident tuition, fees, and health insurance rose from $31,619 to $43,016 -- up 36.0%. Private-resident rose from $50,558 to $68,342 -- up 35.2%. Private-nonresident rose from $52,207 to $69,789 -- up 33.6%. Public-nonresident rose the least, from $54,549 to $68,032 -- up 24.7%.
The more recent 6-year window (2020-2021 through 2025-2026, charted above) shows the same categories climbing every single year with no down-years in any of the four -- this isn't a recent spike, it's a sustained, multi-year trend across the entire period AAMC has published this survey.
What this means for cost planning
- The in-state public discount is the single biggest lever you control. If cost matters to your decision, establishing residency in a state with a strong public medical school system before you apply is worth far more than shopping between private schools.
- Nonresident status effectively erases most of the public-school cost advantage. Once nonresident public and private tuition sit within a couple thousand dollars of each other, the "go public to save money" logic only holds if you can actually get in-state rates.
- This is a survey average, not any single school's exact sticker price. Individual schools vary well above and below these averages -- treat this as the national baseline to compare a specific school's quoted cost of attendance against, not a substitute for that school's own number.
- Where you live also changes your admission odds, not just your cost -- see which states give you the best in-state matriculation odds for the acceptance-side version of this same in-state advantage.
- A small number of schools sidestep this entire cost trend, not just discount it. Six MD programs charge every enrolled student $0 in tuition regardless of income, and several more waive it below a specific income line -- see the real, current list of which schools are actually free for everyone versus free only below an income threshold before assuming the averages above apply to your specific target schools.