Montana med school clash revives for-profit vs. nonprofit flap

Montana is one of only four states without a medical school, making it fertile ground for one.

What’s happening in this Western state triggers questions about how future doctors will be trained, how that training will be paid for and whether a rural, sparsely populated state can sustain either a nonprofit or for-profit medical school, let alone both.

For more than 100 years, for-profit medical schools were banned in the U.S. because of the early 20th-century schools’ low educational standards and a reputation of accepting anyone who could pay tuition.