LECOM Ranks at the Top for Lowest Loan Default Rate

The Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM) has been recognized in LendEDU's Annual Report on Student Loan Default Rates for having one of the lowest default rates not only in Pennsylvania, but throughout the entire United States. LendEDU is a respected online marketplace offering a variety of financial products, including student loans, personal loans, and credit cards.

Specifically, the default rate at LECOM was 0.40%, according to the most recent data from the Department of Education. The figure placed LECOM in the category of one of the lowest student default rates in Pennsylvania. Nationally, the exceptionally low default rate at LECOM placed the college in the 90th percentile.

During a time whenh student loan debt is higher than ever before, LECOM has become renowned for creating an environment in which the burden of student loan debt repayment is far less than that of almost every other college in the nation.

With data provided by the United States Department of Education, LendEDU lists the default rates for nearly 4,500 colleges across the country. The data was delineated by state and school type. This praiseworthy attainment is not only valuable information for prospective students; moreover it underscores the wholly studentcentered pledge that LECOM has honored time and again.

As evidenced by these rankings, the LECOM mission strenuously values, underscores, supports, and advances its scholars throughout each stage of their training as they acquire and apply the necessary, wellinformed knowledge and skills that prepare them to be the best healthcare practitioners of the 21st century.

“With manageable student loan debt, our graduates are able to afford their loan payments without feeling completely overwhelmed by the financial burden of their debt, ultimately avoiding the damaging effects of student loan default.” – Bonnie Crilley, LECOM Institutional Director of Financial Aid

Fanning the Winds of Fortune for Scholars and Scholarship

Andrew Carnegie, famed steel magnate and philanthropist, revolutionized steel production in the United States. Carnegie built plants throughout the nation, using innovative technology that facilitated manufacturing. During each step of the process, Carnegie ensured that he owned all that was needed to create the best steel: the raw materials, the trains and ships for product transport, and even coal mines to drive the furnaces with abundant fuel.

This beginning-to-end strategic plan placed Carnegie in the vanguard of the industry, allowing him to become one of the most prolific benefactors in American history. Carnegie Steel Corporation became one of the largest steel organizations in the world, fueling the economy and shaping America; and its namesake became known as one of the Builders of the Nation. Often, there exists a striking similarity among the leadership styles of great visionaries, for it is the well-considered strategic plan and the bold vision that combine to form the foundation of successful endeavors. Those familiar with the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM) need not look far to observe the similarities here referenced.

At LECOM, much has transpired in the almost three decades of exceptionalism – education, enrichment, character, and community – all within the prophecy of a prescient body of educators and physicians whose idea of the possible has transformed the economic tapestry of the region for the betterment of its graduates and the greater community.

Much like Carnegie’s steel nexus, the LECOM founders, under the guidance of President and CEO John M. Ferretti, DO, developed a nexus of medical education and healthcare in the form of the only osteopathic academic health center in America. Together, LECOM and LECOM Health provide all of the means of production, educating scholars at the highest level across four campus locations using innovative, student-centered pathways unique to LECOM, training within its fulsome network of clinical sites, and graduating superlatively trained and wholly capable healthcare professionals prepared to enter the medical arena of the 21st century. Boasting the lowest tuition among private medical schools in the United States, LECOM has held fast to the mission of supporting its medical scholars by offsetting the cost of their education. Since 1994, LECOM has distributed more than $37 million in scholarships to deserving students, including $20 million over the last five years alone.

Galas and golf tournaments, races, runs, and regional partnerships have made a palpably positive difference in the lives of LECOM scholars.

The Annual LECOM Student Scholarship Fund Auctions are the chief generators of resources that are used to assist students in defraying and offsetting the cost of their medical education. Each year, LECOM distributes more than $4 million dollars in scholarship aid for deserving

scholars. In a time during which there is an increased need for primary care physicians, the need for successfully graduated medical practitioners is felt now more intensely than ever before.

LECOM makes a significant impact upon student lives each day, improving the student experience through education, advocacy, fundraising, and the hands-on nurturing of positive professional outcomes.

Many of these fiscally positive outcomes are a direct result of events and activities that advance physical activity or health-focused sporting endeavors, highlighting the link between an active lifestyle and whole body wellness.

LECOM stands proudly as the title sponsor of the LECOM Suncoast Classic in Lakewood Ranch, Florida. The highly publicized event furthers the purposeful role of LECOM as an unabashed leader in advancing the powerfully healing principles of osteopathic medicine while simultaneously blending its mission-driven objective of benefiting its Student Scholarship Fund. The LECOM Suncoast Classic 2020, held at Lakewood National Golf Club, hosted 144 professionals competing for a $600,000 purse and a chance to contend against the best golfers on the PGA TOUR.

Through this event, LECOM demonstrates its unswerving commitment to educational advancement as it supports scholarships for LECOM osteopathic medicine, pharmacy, and dental students through its Student Scholarship Fund and fundraising endeavors that reinforce the noble calling of osteopathic medicine.

Races and regattas round out the activity-based fundraisers that encourage the healthful involvement of those gathered as they physically participate in furthering a meaningful objective. The Sixth Annual Bradenton Area River Regatta, in Palmetto and Bradenton, Florida, features plenty of boats, an evening of fireworks, and it offers a fabulous venue for an invigorating family outing. The February event drew thousands of attendees. LECOM enthusiastically sponsored the LECOM Regatta Bridge Run and Walk during which participants ran and walked across the dual city Green Bridge to finish under the glow of the spectacular fireworks.

During the summer, hundreds of runners take part in the LECOM 5K Scholarship Run/Walk. The purposeful community event in Erie, Pennsylvania, encourages the pursuit of healthful lifestyles, promotes physical fitness, and improves the health of the region while providing financial support for medical, pharmacy, and dental school students.

During autumn, the inaugural LECOM Costume Caper 5K Race found eager participants donning their most elaborate Halloween-themed apparel to trot and stroll the North Shore Riverwalk and trails of Pittsburgh, all for the benefit of LECOM scholars.

Compounding the plentiful results of participation-based events, the LECOM Student Scholarship Fund has received significant investment support as a result of prudent partnerships with like-minded organizations.

Consider the recent LECOM and Pegula Sport and Entertainment (PSE) partnership, an initiative through which PSE has committed $1 million disbursed into the LECOM Student Scholarship Fund over the next 10 years. Each year, 10 LECOM medical, pharmacy, and dental students across Western New York will receive a $10,000 scholarship. By expanding the accessibility of medical education to aspiring students throughout the region, the program seeks to encourage more healthcare professionals to serve Western New York and the Southern Tier.

Similarly, Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield has renewed its partnership with LECOM, an alliance that began in 2012, with an initial five-year, $500,000 contribution from Highmark. With the continuation of the Scholarship, a decade-long continuum of LECOM graduates who train and work within the Allegheny Health Network has been solidly established. An added $500,000 contribution further supports the continuation of the Student-To-Practice Academic Scholarship, the collaborative scholarship program that seeks to increase the supply and retention of physicians in rural areas of Pennsylvania.

There is no doubt that LECOM students and their families recognize, in a tangible manner, the way in which LECOM dedicates itself to student success.

Decades have tested the LECOM commitment – doubted by their peers who scoffed at the founders’ vision of establishing an osteopathic medical school in the early 1990s, pressed by the resistance of the allopathic community to the osteopathic field, and sharpened by the current events in the healthcare climate – LECOM has never wavered in its single-minded focus to educate the next generation of healthcare providers and to better each community that it has come to serve.

It has achieved this noble goal through a steadfast drive to fan the winds of fortune, ever directing them toward LECOM scholars and ensuring bold and sustainable student success.