The White Coat Investor posted this blog regarding the difficulty M1s are experiencing securing or receiving ridiculous interest rates on private educational loans. It might be more challenging for D1s. How to Get Private Medical School Loans (and a Rant About Why This Is So Hard Now!) | White Coat Investor
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Challenges Securing Private Loans
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Make sure you let them know about the dental student perspective.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Private loans will be 10-20% APR.
JacquesVallee
Full Member
Has anyone heard of any pre-dents being denied loans yet? Still surprised private lenders are covering the NYUs and USCs.
Good question. The NYUs and USCs may be fine if they get the students with financial backing from family.
JacquesVallee
Full Member
I can't imagine every single incoming D1 has hefty parental financial backing...
Agreed but with the changes these schools may be either forced to lower tuition, somehow people are able to secure private loans, or they lower the threshold of acceptance. Either way it could be a downhill spiral for these expensive schools similar to what's already happened with NYU which is a financial nightmare, and you don't get the education backing up the money.
So far though the demand for dental schools has stayed steady (or even gone up) and not enough supply (education) so there's no reason the price won't keep going up and up. If the private loan people say no and students don't have family financial support the demand will fall... But each of the most expensive schools still get thousands of applications for only hundreds of spots every year. The reputation of the school matters a little, but people are so desperate they'll go anywhere.
What's happening at NYU? Are you referring to the price? If so, there are plenty of other schools in that range.
It's really unfortunate how academia loves to charge us insane amounts for trying to better ourselves. I really wish full financial support was from the government vs us trying to self fund. I am not a dental student, but medical and alot of my classmates and I ended up using Juno as a way to at least compare the different rates
This is the country we have, and our elected government(s) fund according to the will of the electorate. We are not a "socialist" country where the government (in whatever democratic or authoritarian form) understands that sentiment and subsidizes a great amount of the costs. Higher education is more a "business" here.
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@mintydaisy13
I really don't want to delve into a discussion on government subsidizing schools, which some state systems do fairly well, but also consider the income potential (specific to MD/DO students) vs more socialist systems. But....how was your Juno experience? What type of interest rates were offered? Did you need a co-signer?
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I have a feeling private loan investors have plans for how to handle the amount of private professional school loans upcoming professional school students are going to be taking out. Rather, they are aware not everyone is going to be coming from the most affluent background...even still, because of the BBB, a lot of people that do not come from affluent, or at least families with decent credit who can cosign professional loans, will be at a big disadvantage or may not even be able to attend until this stupid bill is fixed when our current president is out of office.
I anticipate a rise in the amount of applicants who are going to be accepted will likely be from families of money though...which is not good. This bill is going to make professional programs excatly how they used to be, for the rich and the rich only. Not allowing for those of lesser upringings to have a fair chance. I hate it.
All that to say, I think the private loan industry is going to change drastically over the course of the next few years to compensate...so time will tell.
JacquesVallee
Full Member
There aren’t enough rich families of predents to reasonably afford all of the private schools. After four years, we will see new grads struggling with their insane private loans, then we will finally see the positive effects of the BBB. Here’s to hoping we get mass school closures.
Four years... ten years... we'll see how the rest of organized dentistry handles this (assuming no other laws are passed).
I think many more dental schools -- especially at public institutions -- will adapt to a 3-year curriculum rather than shutter.
Huge infusion of cash from corporate/PE. The Workman model is out there...
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I definitely agree there will be a decent number of school closures in the future...what a time!
April 2026 blog
JacquesVallee
Full Member
Still haven't heard of any pre-dents being denied loans sadlyApril 2026 blog
someone online got into a TX school the week before school started
and i heard that ohsu admitted someone the week before orientation too
JacquesVallee
Full Member
I'm cautiously optimistic. However, even back in my day, I heard of people randomly getting in in mid-august because someone dropped for whatever random reason. I even know someone who got in the first week classes started.
i never said it doesn't rarely happen
it's an interesting data point that we heard from 2 public schools, including a tx school, which are generally the cheapest in the nation
i am wondering how much of this happened at privates, especially the high cost ones...
JacquesVallee
Full Member
i hope you're right...
reddit would be the first place to see any dam breaking, assuming dental students have time to gripe about it. Let's see what happens after the first cycle of exams when students really get under pressure with courses.
Person should have asked us at SDN. I think I pointed out that you have to pay tuition for dental residency programs.
astudentslawyer
New Member
What worries me is how the private student loan companies will be handling students who get dismissed from medical school
Meaning what? Maybe you feel the terms of loan agreement should be modified if a student does not complete their academic program?
Maybe you mean one should worry about the students paying back those loans if they are dismissed?
D1BuildsStuff
New Member
for anyone who's already gone through private loan apps this year, what rates are yall actually seeing? and did your school's fin aid office help at all? trying to figure out what the gap above the $50k federal cap is really going to cost people
University financial aid websites list some rates given for private loans from certain sources. However, you must reapply for private loans annually, so interest rates may vary.
We have numbers in the 2025-2026 Applicant Experience Survey, and we welcome insights in the 2026-2027 surveys.
Again, our Student Advisory Council is interested in this topic and wants to collect stories.
Yeah and in New York you get screwed because you still need to do a GPR year and the cost of living is very high in NYC. There are other schools "in the range" but private practice dentistry isn't going in a favorable direction. More and more dentists living of the W2 which at even $250,000 salary you're taxed out the wazoo with the tax brackets. Only way you could MAYBE justify NYU is if you're going to be an owner and be dealing with fee for service but you're not going to have that skillset out of dental school with having "done" a procedure three times.
I would love to see a model where dental school is 3 years. If you go onto specialize you start residency after this 3 years or if you do GD you do a 1 year GPR. 4th year isn't very beneficial to do more fillings or crowns if you're going into ortho, surgery, perio, etc.
Pacific has been around as a 3-year curriculum for quite a while. Roseman has had a 3-year curriculum for a few years. The model is out there, but the execution/approval is key.
JacquesVallee
Full Member
I agree that three years with a paid fourth year residency would be a much improved model. However, dental school should then cost 1/4 the price and we all know that no school would willingly do that under any circumstance. They would have to somehow be forced to do so, and I can't imagine how that could happen.
Yeah... the key question: who pays for the paid GPR year? It won't be the schools or the hospitals/clinics. The GME funding freeze over the years doesn't make me optimistic that this could happen. Dental students aren't used to an ERAS application process as a normal, required next step in their education... that would require a huge restructuring of dental ed to be more like med ed (and there would be strong resistance to that).
Yeah I haven’t worked out the details. Even if it was net zero for the final year where all you pay is living expenses. Send ppl to rural or underserved areas and I’m sure the government would throw some funding in. I’m not even saying GPR in the literal sense of working in a hospital more like working for a practice or community health center.
JacquesVallee
Full Member
No, you're completely correct. It would take a complete restructuring of the entire system which won't happen. The only changes that will occur will happen when not enough students apply to fill classes. Simply put, the future of dentistry is schools charging the maximum that students are willing to pay. We are at the phase of decline where all institutions are simply looting as much money as they can as nobody cares about actually bettering our students or even patients.
