[8][4] The lack of a summer break offers students a potentially faster route than US medical schools to a degree with a compressed curriculum.
Caribbean offshore medical schools have less than 5% local students; the rest are mainly from North America.
Whether a school has state board accreditation or is recognized by loan programs appear to have great influence on the number of applicants, and the effect is seen in the size of student body.
The California list of recognized schools is used by boards of medicine from several U.S. states (e.g. Colorado, Oregon, Indiana and Tennessee).
[2] Caribbean countries were selected to locate these medical schools due to the less demanding regulatory environment compared to the United States or Canada.
On the other hand, this created a big demand in clinical rotations that even the large states have problem accommodating,[17] let alone their home country, and draw attention from US and Canada auditors who are concerned over public loan use.
[1] Instead of getting research grants and local government funds, offshore schools often depend on wealthy students from out of country.
The local healthcare industry also receive financial and educational help from offshore schools in exchange of clinical experience of students.