BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) – A longtime resident who died last year has left $6.8 million to the University of Vermont College of Medicine.
The gift from Elinor B. Tourville Bennett will enable the medical school to make no-interest loans to Vermont students to help cover the costs of their educations.
The no-interest loans are expected to help many students. The average College of Medicine graduate last year left school with more than $134,000 in debt.
Rebecca Brakeley, a third-year medical student from Middlebury, said the new loan program should help alleviate some of the financial stress on new graduates. It may drive more students to enter primary care instead of specialties that pay higher salaries, she said.
The new fund “will impact the education of Vermont medical students in perpetuity,” said John P. Fogarty, interim dean of the college, in a news release. “This will allow a student to lighten his or her burden of debt and help them make their goal of becoming a physician a reality.”
Bennett was treated by local physicians for several serious health problems before her death at 86.
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