By Staff

New York University (NYU) on Thursday announced it will offer free tuition for all of it's medical students, regardless of their financial income. This will immediately cover their 92 first-year medical students and 350 current medical students already partway through their medical program. In a first for medical schools, it has raised more than $450 million of the $600 million needed to continue the tuition-free program in perpetuity.

With NYU's most recent medical class graduating with over $192,000 in student loans a piece, medical students have had to pay off student loans well into their 50's. Nationally, most medical students owe over $195,000 in student loans upon graduation.

NYU's announcement comes with the financial commitment of $100 million from Home Depot founder Kenneth Lagone, and his wife Elaine.

Nationally, medical schools have been aggressively fundraising to compete for top prospects, alleviate student debt and encourage medical student to enter primary care and other low-paying fields in this dire shortage.

NYU announced that the school with refund all of the out-of-pocket tuition payments by its medical students for the current year and return loans that students have taken out.