Hi 6 years OMFS, How much total student loans do you have??

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Arhat

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I have 420,000K loans after 4 years of dental shool and 3 medical school

Holy Crap! I am so Screwed!

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I'm at $420,000 after DS and another $100,000 for MS tuition and living expenses. Add in accruing interest for 6 years and I'm around $600,000.
 
My spouse works. Changes EVERYTHING.

For everyone else out there. If you don't have kids you have no excuse and your spouse needs to work. The debt situation and cash flow is markedly altered.

None of my coresidents have lazy spouses but ive met some that think they are already the doctor's wife. Unbelievable.
 
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I'm at $420,000 after DS and another $100,000 for MS tuition and living expenses. Add in accruing interest for 6 years and I'm around $600,000.
:eek: in-freaking-sane.
 
This is a real problem in healthcare in general and in OMS in particular. I graduated with two other residents a year ago and our average student loan debt was around 400k. We all had undergrad paid for, so we are only talking dental school and medical school. This burden is something that the older generation of omf surgeons do not understand and I believe is a fundamental reason why oral and maxillofacial surgery is increasingly losing touch with the maxillofacial component in private practice.
 
i think i can beat any of the above, im currently 425K in, and starting MS in september. according to my calculations i'll be 700K in debt when im out :(.

P.S. Just got my passing Step 1 score a few hours ago, something to counteract the depressing convo about laons! haha
 
i think i can beat any of the above, im currently 425K in, and starting MS in september. according to my calculations i'll be 700K in debt when im out :(.

P.S. Just got my passing Step 1 score a few hours ago, something to counteract the depressing convo about laons! haha


Congrats on passing step 1 I'm sure it's nice to be over that hurdle!
 
i think i can beat any of the above, im currently 425K in, and starting MS in september. according to my calculations i'll be 700K in debt when im out :(.

P.S. Just got my passing Step 1 score a few hours ago, something to counteract the depressing convo about laons! haha

Ouch,

Assuming your average interest rate is approximately 5 percent, and you pay it off over 30 years, thats a 3700 nut every month

Put another way, you cant invest 3700 dollars a month which over 30 years at 5 percent is over 3 million dollars.

Not that my situation is any better. Im 4 years out of residency and still owe approx 280 g's

Oh and 80 percent of that is at 1.65 fixed for the life of the loan
 
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The smart thing to due when it comes to debt is pay more than you can and be cheap. You will literally save 100s of thousands and will be able to build up a bigger bank with loans paid off. Like someone said earlier, 700k would prolly be 3 million over 30 years. Sorry, but I don't want to be 50+ paying loans from grad school in my 20's.

It's how you approach the debt that matters. If you want to finish paying off the loan fast to save more money over the long run, but live a limited life in terms of how much you can spend to save money for paying off loans, or spend all the pocket money on loans, mortgage, and all the nice car leases you'll have.
 
I posted this question in another forum, but I'm going to post it here, too. How much is too much? I mean, realistically, at 5 years in practice, how much can you make? The level of debt that people are going into is insane. I think that students are looking at generations past of practitioners and seeing how much money they make and thinking, "oh yeah, I'll be fine." But generations past did not have the crazy debt that people do today. Additionally, the market is becoming saturated as a result of new schools opening.

How long will it take an OMS to pay back this kind of debt? If someone finishes dental school as many are today with 400K of debt and does 6-year OMS, you will be looking at well over 700K by the time you finish. This is nuts. What about people paying for ENDO or Ortho residencies? It's basically the same as paying for two more years of med school. And then, after all that, there is opening a practice. YOu will be looking at over a million dollars of debt before you have positive cash flow. Honestly, I think that the crap storm simply hasn't hit yet for the issues associated with this level of debt to become a reality.
 
I'm graduating this December from an orthodontic program. In retrospect, I feel lucky to have gotten matched in a program in the midwest. It's not an ideal place to live but I only borrowed a total amount of $38k for residency. I remember when I found out where I had matched, I was quite sad. Now that I'm finishing in a couple of months, I can look back and think everything happened for a reason. Including dental school, I'm looking at 200k of debt.
 
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