A cross-disciplinary assessment of student loans debt, financial support for study and career preferences upon graduation.

AIM: To explore relationships between student loans debt, financial support and career preferences upon graduation for all healthcare disciplines offered at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland.

METHODS: The Faculty Tracking Project is a longitudinal study which invites students to complete a questionnaire at the beginning and end of their educational programmes, including questions on debt, financial support and career preference. Our analysis comprised three phases: (1) a descriptive analysis of data related to debt and financial support; (2) a principal component analysis in order to find related categories of career choice; and (3) logistic regression models to determine how career preference categories could be explained by either levels of student loans debt or financial support.

RESULTS: Data from 2,405 participating students were included. Students in health sciences, nursing and pharmacy typically accrue levels of student loans debt of around $15,000 to $29,999, while optometry students accrue debt around $15,000 higher. Medical students show debt distributed around modes of $0 and $90,000 or more. All students typically access three sources of financial support during study. Career preferences at graduation reduced to four categories for all health disciplines. We found five significant effects, involving students in health sciences, medicine and pharmacy, relating the number of sources of financial support to the four categories of career preference. No significant effects were found related to level of student loans debt.

CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that financial support is a more strongly determining factor in career choices than the level of student loans debt. The four-category framework for student career preferences appears to be a useful model for further research.