New Kaiser Med School In Pasadena To Offer Free Tuition To All Students

PASADENA (CBSLA) – Healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente announced plans Tuesday to open a new medical school in Pasadena in 2020 which will offer free tuition to students.

The company reported that it has received preliminary accreditation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education for the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine and plans to begin classes in the summer of 2020.

Prospective students can begin to apply in June of this year. Kaiser said that it will be waiving all four years of tuition for its first five graduating classes.

Construction of the school, which will be located at 98 S. Los Robles Ave., is expected to be completed later this year. Kaiser released a video Monday with a 3D fly-through rendering of the four-story building.

"We've had the opportunity to build a medical school from the ground up and have drawn from evidence-based educational approaches to develop a state-of-the-art school on the forefront of medical education, committed to preparing students to provide outstanding patient care in our nation's complex and evolving health care system," said Dr. Mark A. Schuster, the founding dean and CEO of the school, in a statement.

Students will do their clinical work at Kaiser hospitals and clinics throughout the region.

The spiking cost of higher education has become a major political and social issue in recent years. Last week, Cerritos College in Norwalk announced it will be offering two years of free tuition to students. Assembly Bill 2, which was proposed in December and is currently being considered in the California Legislature, would echo what Cerritos College is doing by offering free tuition for the first two years at all state community colleges.

For more information on the medical school, click here.