A Case Study: US Medical School Enrollment

In my previous post, US Graduate Enrollment, I did some analysis about US graduate school enrollment. The motive to do that is to understand the problematic issues in graduate school, such as graduate student mental health issue and career pursue and outcome issues. In my precious analysis, the graduate fields of study do not include professional programs, such as law and medicine. It is worth to do a compare.

The US medical school enrollment increased about 45% from 1980 to 2021, as the enrollment of  2021 is about 95,000 (Figure 1). The US medical school enrollment data were extracted from the Association of American Medical College (AAMC), FACTS. The increase rate in US medical school enrollment is less than the rates of US undergraduate enrollment and graduate school enrollment. Over the years, 1980-2021, the peak of US undergraduate enrollment was in 2010, reached 18 millions, which was 73% more than the undergraduate enrollment in 1980. The US graduate enrollment was about 700,000 in 2020, which was 90% more than the graduate enrollment in 1980.     

 

(Figure 1 US medical school enrollment from 1980-2021) 

On the other hand, the US medical school applicants in an academic year increased about 73% from 1980 to 2021. The increase rate of US medical school applicants is comparable with the increase rate of US undergraduate enrollment over 1980-2021. The maximum increase rate of US medical school applicants occurred in 1990s (Figure 2), and in the academic year of 2021-2022, the US medical school applicants reached 62,443. However, the US medical school matriculants only had conserved changes from previous year (about 0-3%) over the years. Since 2000s, the US medical school matriculants has the trend of slow increase, but the most increase rates do not exceed 3%.    
 

(Figure 2 Percentage change of US medical school applicants and matriculants from 1980-2021) 

The increase in US college graduates reflected in the increase of US medical school applicants. However, the increase of US medical school applicants did not affect the US medical school matriculants significantly. It seems that the rate of US medical school matriculants is controlled, does not fluctuate or follow the trend of applicants at all. Furthermore, from 1980 to 2021, the US population increased about 45%, as the US population from 229,476,354 in 1980 to 332,915,073 in 2021. It looks like the the increase of US medical school enrollment matches the increase of US population. Is this a good model, for the training of medical professionals in order to meet the market needs? The nonprofessional graduate training (such as PhD) is often for academic research and education. The massive increase in US graduate enrollment implies the lack of thoughtful design and planning given the job market needs. Where do we need that many talent people who are with the most advanced degree and who can do research? I think it is not a surprise about the graduate school students' mental health issue - when we try to understand the world which is beyond what we can understand and when the knowledge and skills we obtain is beyond what the world needs, we must be very anxious.