It's wonderful how everyone is totally missing the whole issue of my argument. Everyone is stuck on proving that "NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO MOVE TO LA/NYU...blah blah blah." Fine. Let me clear up my argument and then get some REAL responses.
I am SPECIFICALLY talking about the majority of students, which hail from California or New York, very big, highly competitive areas for dentists due to market saturation. We have people on this board thinking they will be making $200k a couple years out of d-school. THIS IS NOT THE CASE, and the reason why I am desperately trying to MAKE THIS CLEAR is that most people choosing to go to the HIGHLY expensive schools in those said states, USC and NYU in particular are setting themselves up for a harsh reality - once they graduate and can find jobs paying anywhere in Los Angeles, for instance, that only pay $80-90K for associates (which in these markets it is also very difficult to find lucrative profit sharing positions/production bonuses which do not have any "fine print" stipulations attached to the contracts) they will be the FIRST ones crying going to work.
Case in point: I had a cousin who graduated from UOP 5 years ago with $250K in student debts. Everyone thought wow! Dentistry in 3 years! He'll be a rich bastard by the time he's 28! He'll be making $250K when he's 30 etc etc. I specifically recall asking him about whether he is afraid of the huge debt he amassed during d-school, and he snapped his fingers and said paying it off is a cinch - only 8 to 10 years AT THE MOST.
Well, he graduated, works in downtown Los Angeles near where his parents lived, started out with $75,000 and has now, after 5 years of hard work, finally reached the $110,000 level.
He bitches all the time, "f*in student loans....those bastards at UOP.....should've gone somewhere cheaper etc etc." I swear I hear this garbage from him a lot. After taxes, his student loan payments, he has a very seemingly mediocre lifestyle - he lives in a 2 bedroom apartment in Westwood (a fairly swanky area) but the apartment is butt ugly and he bought a used BMW Z3 cause he wanted to have a pimped out car or whatever.
Now, before any of you start to say "oh yea he lives in Westwood blah blah" he could have only afforded a townhouse/condo in the San Fernando Valley (Encino or Woodland Hills, for example) for the same price he purchased his apartment, which is pretty sad for those of you familiar with the area. Anyways, that's my $.02 about reality of practicing in Los Angeles.
PS I've gone over this long post just to make sure that you people don't go off topic, but I just know some idiot will talk about his Z3 or something... 🙄
