New for-profit medical schools springing up across US

For-profit medical schools are starting to pop up around the country, promising to create new family doctors for under-served rural regions.

Rural states like Idaho need more general practitioners, with the baby boom generation aging and expanded insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act making health care more accessible.

But critics of the new schools question whether companies can properly train the nation’s next crop of doctors.

The for-profit schools are generally much more expensive than public medical schools. The student loans at the for-profit schools typically aren’t eligible for federal loan-forgiveness programs.

Still, the for-profit approach to medical education appears to be expanding. The first such school in the U.S. opened in Colorado in 2007. Several more have opened across the country in the years since.

New for-profit med schools are currently planned for Utah and Idaho.