Many dental schools are going above $80,000 per year for tuition alone. Why is dental school so expensive? Is it cost of materials? Faculty salaries? Malpractice insurance? I can't find any transparent explanation on this uncontrollable issue.
Because the Fed hands out an unlimited amount of money that students can borrow with no questions asked. Dental schools could charge 200 grand a year and eager students that don't understand the concept of crushing student debt levels would be happy to sign on the dotted line because they're so excited to go to dental school and be called doctor. The dental schools get their money up front and move on. The student is left disillusioned at the end of school when they suddenly realize that they can't live a life of luxury with their enormous student debt levels.
That's it in a nutshell, anyway. It's the student debt bubble. I've been waiting for it to pop for along time.
There always seems to be people that then say "so are you suggesting that only rich people should be able to go to school?? I need that student loan money because I can't afford it otherwise!!!"
No, that is not what is being said, you've misunderstood the issue.
What can students (or doctors) possibly do to change this?
It's not just that though. Dental school costs comparatively more than medical or veterinary school because the materials are significantly more expensive. If you look at the cost of medical school versus dental school in countries outside the United States, the same trend holds up- dental school always costs more if tuition is paid in a given country, because dental school requires supplies and facilities that medical schools generally do not need to provide for themselves, as their students rotate in hospitals that would be seeing patients anyway. Would it be cheaper without federal loans? Possibly. But look at first world countries that allow foreign students to attend at unsubsidized rates. Their tuition is pretty damn high for foreign students, most I can find are over 30k euros.Because the Fed hands out an unlimited amount of money that students can borrow with no questions asked. Dental schools could charge 200 grand a year and eager students that don't understand the concept of crushing student debt levels would be happy to sign on the dotted line because they're so excited to go to dental school and be called doctor. The dental schools get their money up front and move on. The student is left disillusioned at the end of school when they suddenly realize that they can't live a life of luxury with their enormous student debt levels.
That's it in a nutshell, anyway. It's the student debt bubble. I've been waiting for it to pop for along time.
There always seems to be people that then say "so are you suggesting that only rich people should be able to go to school?? I need that student loan money because I can't afford it otherwise!!!"
No, that is not what is being said, you've misunderstood the issue.
Devil's advocate here. Dental school has always been expensive. It's arguably the most expensive graduate degree to get. What makes it expensive is that a dental school has to build and run it's own clinics whereas medicine gets to turf that to a hospital. While clinics bring in income, that income has not gone up since most of the pts a dental school sees will be low income, medicare, medicaid. Thus, the clinic income has stayed the same or decreased in the last 15-20 years. What also has made cost go up is decreased funding from the state. Decreased state funding has almost shut down several schools in the last 15-20 years. So the only other income stream a school has and can raise to stay in business is tuition. The idea that just because government loans for students are guaranteed means schools have a blank check is dubious. These loans have been around forever and it's only in the last decade you've seen dental education costs double. Even before those loans, the influx of soldiers attending university because of the GI bill was high.
Dental school is expensive. You need income streams to offset tuition and at the moment, those streams are drying up. So the student bears the brunt. How do you stop that? Get with your local dental society, your state dental association, get involved with organized dentistry, and RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE. The odds of a school lowering tuition and fees is almost nil, but you can lobby for decreased interest percentage, capping the total amount of interest your loan generates, or increasing repayment programs.
Your argument that a bank would not fund students loans for dental school isn't necessarily true. I think those seeking financing for practices are a great example. Using traditional metrics, sure it looks like a bad investment. But those in finance who understand dentistry realize dentists have a very high success rate. I don't see why a financial institution couldn't stretch that further and loan to dental students (though with higher risk management things in place) because less than 10% of dental students fail out or don't get licensed. It's a pretty good gamble. The point that bugs me when people make the argument that unlimited loans from the government drives up prices is that what is the alternative? If the US government doesn't loan it, odds are banks would. And it would be worse for students because interest would be worse, there would be no safety net in place for those who borrow, and odds are someone else would step up and loan relatively freely to a dental student.
Disagree.
We're talking about STUDENT loans, not business loans for dentists that have already graduated and established themselves as a reputable person that has the financial wherewithal to pay the loan back. Not only that, but banks look at the production numbers of a practice as part of the loan. Students have NOTHING to back up the enormous amount of money they withdraw. Notice that private student lenders are either exiting the market, or capping the amount they lend out to around 200k? Chase is one such bank that comes to mind - one of the largest banks in the United States no longer offers student loans. What financial sense does it make to lend 400 grand to a 21 year old kid that has no job, no credit, no savings, and no assets? Private banks know this and don't lend it. It's not profitable for them anymore, and it's risky.
Enter the Fed. They are now dominating the student loan market. They will loan out whatever the cost of education is, no questions asked.
Think about this for a second. Say you own a business that sells Product X. Product X is highly desirable, AND no matter what you charge, people will have a way to pay for it. What are you going to do with the price of Product X? Jack it through the roof. And why wouldn't you? You'd be laughing all the way to the bank.
I said this in my first post already. There's always someone that asks what the alternative is, because 'how else would people pay for it'? I only offer this...
What do you think would happen if, starting tomorrow, the federal government passed some new bill that limited the amount of money we could borrow to 250k, including undergrad? A good chunk of professional schools that charge your first born son, would either close, or slash prices.
This is eerily similar to the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Back then, people that had no means to pay back these HUGE mortgages were being approved left and right, with little to no questions asked. The banks were willing to do this because they thought that if the homeowner defaulted, at least the bank still owned the house that was increasing in value, of which they could sell (but even that bit them in the ass, too). Except, student loans have NO COMMODITY tied to them that has value. It's just plain debt. You can't sell a degree to someone else and turn a profit.
So to me, it's shortsighted to say that an unlimited money supply plays no role in the prices of higher education seen across the entire country. The bubble can only get so big.
I also found this pretty interesting...
http://www.elliottwaveanalytics.com/2012/12/fed-balance-sheet-horrific-student-loan-exposure/
Because the Fed hands out an unlimited amount of money that students can borrow with no questions asked. Dental schools could charge 200 grand a year and eager students that don't understand the concept of crushing student debt levels would be happy to sign on the dotted line because they're so excited to go to dental school and be called doctor. The dental schools get their money up front and move on. The student is left disillusioned at the end of school when they suddenly realize that they can't live a life of luxury with their enormous student debt levels.
That's it in a nutshell, anyway. It's the student debt bubble. I've been waiting for it to pop for along time.
There always seems to be people that then say "so are you suggesting that only rich people should be able to go to school?? I need that student loan money because I can't afford it otherwise!!!"
No, that is not what is being said, you've misunderstood the issue.
Your argument would be stronger if it wasn't for stories like this: http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal...l-acts-to-fix-broken-system/?intcmp=obnetwork
Law schools are reducing tuition as a response to decrease in demand, not less availability of student loans. To me, this further illustrates that the cause of high tuition isn't as much due to the gov't making unlimited funds available as much as the cause is there being students willing to pay current tuition prices.
If we experience significant declining application numbers, schools will finally know their price is too high and respond appropriately. Hopefully we are hitting that point soon, though I wish we hit it 5 years ago.
I agree. It's definitely not the only cause. But I still think it's a major contributer, not just to dental school, but higher education in general.
Your argument would be stronger if it wasn't for stories like this: http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal...l-acts-to-fix-broken-system/?intcmp=obnetwork
Law schools are reducing tuition as a response to decrease in demand, not less availability of student loans. To me, this further illustrates that the cause of high tuition isn't as much due to the gov't making unlimited funds available as much as it is there being students willing to pay current and higher tuition prices.
If we experience significant declining application numbers, schools will finally know their price is too high and respond appropriately. Hopefully we are hitting that point soon, though I wish we hit it 5 years ago.
During the financial aid portion of my USC interview, it was candidly stated that it was highly unlikely that we would ever be able to personally pay off our dental tuition. IIRC, to pay the loan off in 10 years would require 7k/mo. allocated to debt repayment the day one got out of dental school. If one were to pay their debt over 20 years the amount paid would swell to approximately 3million. Their alternative was to essentially manipulate the US tax system and wait for the 25 year loan forgiveness program now being offered. Over that timespan the USC graduate would still end up paying a substantial amount towards their education (~300-400k) but the rest of their debt would be placed on the government.
As NDPitch said it's a huge bubble waiting to burst. Can't blame USC though. They're just doing the obvious.
During the financial aid portion of my USC interview, it was candidly stated that it was highly unlikely that we would ever be able to personally pay off our dental tuition. IIRC, to pay the loan off in 10 years would require 7k/mo. allocated to debt repayment the day one got out of dental school. If one were to pay their
debt over 20 years the amount paid would swell to approximately 3million. Their alternative was to essentially manipulate the US tax system and wait for the 25 year loan forgiveness program now being offered. Over that timespan the USC graduate would still end up paying a substantial amount towards their education (~300-400k) but the rest of their debt would be placed on the government.
As NDPitch said it's a huge bubble waiting to burst. Can't blame USC though. They're just doing the obvious.
Nah, nah. It's like this dawg. In the beginning, state schools were dirt cheap because it was cheap to train a dentist and state had a lot of money and private schools had to compete pretty, pretty, preettaay, preeeeettttaaayyyyy hard to get prices competitive to state schools. Private school be like "fug you bro." Then state schools get less and less money from state. State school has to raise tuition. Private school be like "Coo coo cool." Then ten years from now, state school tuition be the same as private school tuition. Stateschools be like "Dam, well I tried."And private school be like " AWW YISSS." Students be like "FUUUUQQQ!"
All while this shiet was going on, dental technology was advancing and costing a ton more. Composite costs more than amalgam, cone beam costs more than normal xray, dental school has to buy panoramic, newer, more accurate, and lower dosed x ray machines cost more than older models, paper doc. vs. digital records, there are more procedures are invented and therefore more time and material has to be spent to train this shiet to the newer students, more expensive material cost in general, less lucrative to become a professor so schools try hard to make salaries as competitive to private practice as possible. This shiet is why it costs more to train a dentist. How much of this cost gets dumped on student is depends on state (subsidy) then federal (interest rate). What all you dawgs above who are talking about interest rate and availability of federal loans are wrong thinking that it caused the greatest rise in what it costs to train a dentist. state schools set the price and they're trying to get it as low as possible. Meanwhile private schools are just trying to match the price of state school but now they don't have to as much since state schools can't help but put more cost burden on student. Forget it, i'm probably drunk.
Nah, nah. It's like this dawg. In the beginning, state schools were dirt cheap because it was cheap to train a dentist and state had a lot of money and private schools had to compete pretty, pretty, preettaay, preeeeettttaaayyyyy hard to get prices competitive to state schools. Private school be like "fug you bro." Then state schools get less and less money from state. State school has to raise tuition. Private school be like "Coo coo cool." Then ten years from now, state school tuition be the same as private school tuition. Stateschools be like "Dam, well I tried."And private school be like " AWW YISSS." Students be like "FUUUUQQQ!"
All while this shiet was going on, dental technology was advancing and costing a ton more. Composite costs more than amalgam, cone beam costs more than normal xray, dental school has to buy panoramic, newer, more accurate, and lower dosed x ray machines cost more than older models, paper doc. vs. digital records, there are more procedures are invented and therefore more time and material has to be spent to train this shiet to the newer students, more expensive material cost in general, less lucrative to become a professor so schools try hard to make salaries as competitive to private practice as possible. This shiet is why it costs more to train a dentist. How much of this cost gets dumped on student is depends on state (subsidy) then federal (interest rate). What all you dawgs above who are talking about interest rate and availability of federal loans are wrong thinking that it caused the greatest rise in what it costs to train a dentist. state schools set the price and they're trying to get it as low as possible. Meanwhile private schools are just trying to match the price of state school but now they don't have to as much since state schools can't help but put more cost burden on student. Forget it, i'm probably drunk.