HMS Strategic Planning

MARCH 21, 2008

Message from the Dean

Among the top seven priorities identified by SAGE is reducing medical-student debt, and for many years, this challenge has also been a focus of PME and HMS's faculty and student Committee on Financial Aid. I am proud to report that we are now moving forward on this strategic priority, as well as on important measures to renovate the Tosteson Medical Education Center (TMEC) and to strengthen our graduate programs in the basic sciences.

Debt Reduction
I am extremely pleased to announce that, beginning in 2008-09, we are reducing the level of debt for medical students and their families.

The School has just approved a significant decrease in the financial contribution expected from students' parents by eliminating this cost entirely for families earning $120,000 or less with assets typical of this income group. Building on this change, the School has also decided to exclude from its determination of student financial need the income families set aside each year for retirement.

This new method will allow a larger number of families, extending to the upper-middle class, to qualify for greater financial support. I believe that it is important for our financial aid policies to avoid penalizing families who are working to save for their retirement.

Of the 700 MD students at the Medical School, 235 will benefit from this policy revision, representing one third of the MD student population. On average, the parental contribution for families earning $120,000 or less is about $12,500 per year. So the average savings to each family as a result of this initiative is approximately $50,000 over the traditional four-year program.

The issue of student debt is of great concern to me, which is why I feel particular satisfaction with this first step toward making HMS more affordable.

It is important that the School not be out of reach to a broad segment of undergraduate students and their families. It is equally imperative to avoid burdening families with a new round of debt shortly after a child has finished college.

Reducing indebtedness for our medical students is also essential in light of the recent trend that starting salaries in medicine are lagging increases in educational debt. If borrowing continues to grow, medical students will feel rising pressure to choose more lucrative specialties. Minimizing their debt, on the other hand, will ease this distorting pressure on their career decisions and leverage their ability to become the leaders that they can and should be.

This initiative, in combination with funding to cover increases in the cost of attendance, will result in the awarding of an additional $3 million in HMS scholarship funds in 2008-09, a nearly 40 percent increase over current funding levels.

Even as we announce this new program for eliminating the parent contribution for lower- and middle-income families, we are also pursuing other ways to reduce student debt.

Loan Package
The annual cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses at HMS totals approximately $65,000, and up to three basic components go into paying this yearly bill: family contribution, loan package, and institutional scholarships. Our attention will now focus on the second of these.

A package of subsidized federal and institutional loans, called the Unit Loan, is first offered to students whose families show that their contribution cannot cover the entire cost of attendance.

The Unit Loan at HMS stands at $24,500. Only families whose contribution and Unit Loan together fall short of the annual cost may receive an institutional scholarship. This policy ensures that students with the most need receive priority for scholarship funding. We are currently studying the feasibility of reducing the Unit Loan and replacing the decrease amount with scholarships, further diminishing the debt burden on our students and their families.

I want to commend the efforts by the PME leadership, Jules Dienstag and Jane Neill, and their team, including Bob Coughlin, in restructuring the HMS financial aid program. The work done by SAGE also deserves much credit. They have all done a remarkable job.

TMEC Renovations
In addition to the strides we are taking to make the Medical School more affordable, we are also planning major improvements to the student learning environment with a comprehensive interior renovation of the TMEC.

The building was originally constructed in 1985 to accommodate the New Pathway curriculum. In the intervening two decades, it has seen only routine maintenance with a few isolated renovations. As a consequence, much of the interior space appears tired and dated.

We are planning to invest more than $20 million to refurbish public spaces in the building, including the atrium, amphitheaters, classrooms, teaching labs, hallways, and bathrooms. We expect this work will have a striking impact on the overall experience of those who spend time in the building.

Equally important, we are simultaneously beginning to look at options for a long-range renovation that encompasses the entire Harvard Longwood campus. Some possibilities may include conversions of building use and wholesale renewal of buildings to accommodate new directions for science. In addition, we will need to consider how best to begin integrating the Allston campus into the research and teaching activities of the School.

I would like to thank Rick Mills, Rich LeBlanc, and their colleagues for meeting the opportunities and challenges posed by the near-term TMEC renovation and by the longer term physical planning scenarios.

Further Educational Initiatives
The Medical School is one of the greatest sites in the world for graduate and postgraduate scientific training in addition to its prowess in medical education. The recommendations by SAGE also address these students and trainees.

White papers by SAGE and the other advisory groups will be published on the strategic planning website (http://hms.harvard.edu/public/strategy) for those interested in the early recommendations. I strongly encourage you to review the papers-and the site-and to send us your thoughts by following the Comments link.

Clinical and Translational Science Center
Another major initiative at the Medical School is the Clinical and Translational Science Center, which also has a core education component that seeks to establish an infrastructure for coordinating and integrating education and training at all levels across the Harvard system.

A potent addition to these efforts is a national project, to which Harvard is a leading contributor, that aims to shore up NIH funding for scientific research. This support has a fundamental impact on our graduate and postgraduate programs.

A recent report, titled A Broken Pipeline? Flat Funding of the NIH Puts a Generation of Science at Risk, was prepared under the direction of the HMS Office of Public Affairs and the University's Office of Government, Community, and Public Affairs. It puts the current crisis in funding in bold relief: we may lose a generation of scientists if federal funding continues to slide, giving up-and-coming researchers little incentive to devote themselves to laboratory investigation.

Harvard President Drew Faust and representatives from six of our sister research institutions went to Washington, D.C., to call on Congress to help before the decline in support for biomedical research does irreparable harm to science and education.

As always, I welcome your comments — on the Medical School's educational initiatives or on any other strategic analysis we are currently conducting. Only with your contributions will our planning and our implementation be as thoughtful, efficient, and successful as they can be.

Jeffrey Flier
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine

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