How much debt....

[Qoo]

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are you gonna come out with after 4 (or 3 for UOP) yrs of dental school?

Please state your school as well.


On a side note, what is the starting salary now?

THANKS!

~Qoo

 

[AcidETCH]

300-400K CDN bills. UPENN. It's still worth it. Just won't be driving that M3 or GT2 any time soon. 😛

 

[tinker bell]

Three times as much as what you borrow. Just count that interest accrues while you're in school.
If you borrow $200,000. You'll pay about $600,000 in all after ten years.
Just like buying a nonexistence vacation house.
😛

 

[D.I.T]

We Canadians have access to an exellent dental education for
relatively low prices. The average 4-year dental program in the 8 English-speaking schools ranges from $50,000-$60,000 USD (assuming an exchange rate of $1 USD = $1.60 CDN).

The average income of Canadian general dentists (practicing 1-5 years post-grad) is roughly $70,000-$90,000 USD, so most new graduates are able to pay off their loans in 1 or 2 years. This is a great return on your investment.

The catch is that the level of competition is very high since there are so few schools and the earning potential is so great. At my dental school the class size is 29 and our entering class had a average GPA of 3.79 and DAT scores that were averaging 23.
These stats are quite consistent across the country. It's just plain tougher to get into school here, and the academic calibre of your classmates is awesome.

Canadian schools provide a dental education that rivals the best US schools (UCONN, U of Washington, Harvard & UCSF) and are better than most other US schools. From a financial standpoint, it makes good sense to try to stay in Canada or try to gain residency in a state that has a state-supported dental school.

 

[pumpkins90]

If i can get instate tuition, i'm looking at around $8,000 per year plus i don't have to pay for housing, just the utilities. If all goes well around $60,000-70,000.

 

[DesiDentist]

If I go to:

NOVA: $200,000 + 5 years added to my life

UPENN: $250,000

U.Washington: $ 100,000 and 5 years taken away from my life.

Hmm...tough choices, indeed.


Can anyone help me decide.

DesiDentist

 

[Gilbert]

Some seem to over-exaggerate the implications of student loan debt. If you have $250,000 of principal and accrued interest on the day you graduate from school and assuming an arbitrarily chosen, overly pessimistic 8% APR (.667% periodic rate) amortized over 10 years, you would owe a total of $363,960 (about 3k a month) over the life of the loan?..far less than the $600,000 suggested in a previous reply. Amortized over a twenty period would be approximately $502,000.

Don?t get me wrong; this level of debt is intimidating to say the least, just not quite as bad as some seem to think.

 

[DesiDentist]

Thanks Gilbert.

That helped a lot.

what do you mean by .667% periodic rate? Monthly rate? Aren't most loans now at around 3-4% interest???

DesiDentist

 

[tinker bell]

Loan rates are adjustable, means that what Greenspan says, it changes accordingly.
Unless you borrow federal subsidized loan, almost everything else has interest accrues the day you borrow it.
Or unless you go to UPENN, and you don't have interest while you're in school, like desi said, bc UPENN pays interest for you.
🙄

 

[AcidETCH]

Gilbert: $363,960 in USD = $582,336 in CDN (Xrate of 1.6)

Desidentist: You know you want to go to Penn, just do it. <nike> 😀

It's just that I was thinking of going back to Canada to practice...doesn't look like that will be feasibe in the short term.

AE