Cost of Producing a Medical Student at Chulalongkorn University

Abstract

The cost of producing a medical student in a 6 years curriculum and the analysis of the cost components of the Faculty of Medicine, could be used as the key data for planning, budgeting and preparing for the autonomous university in the future. The cost centers were categorized to be executive, education supporting and education unit. The simultaneous equation method was applied to allocate all costs of other cost centers to the education unit. The unit cost per enrolled student was, 2,161,124 Baht and 8,217 Baht/Student Credit Hour (SCH), while the unit cost per graduate was. 2,174,091 Baht and 8,267 Baht/SCH. The labor cost accounted for 69.46%, capital cost, 26.42% and material cost, 4.12% of the total medical student production cost. The three most costly Departments were Medicine (13.24%), Obstetrics and Gynecology (11.73%) and Paediatrics (9.87%). The cost-fee ratio (cost/fee) was 95:5 which suggested that medical students obtain 95% subsidy from the governmet budget or the society. If the University becomes autonomous and less dependent on public budget, the fee may have to be adjusted higher to cover the cost. The percentage of drop out and repeat students was 0.00-0.88% with delay duration of about 6 months to one year only. The opportunity cost of six years study for a studet attending the medical school was 544,956 Baht which raised the total cost per graduate to 2,719,047 Baht from student/societal perspective.