Most Affordable Dental School?

[deleted767916]

Hey guys!

Recently I found this link talking about the cheapest/ most affordable dental schools: https://studentloanhero.com/featured/best-dental-schools-avoid-six-figure-student-debt/

I was wondering on everyone's thoughts on this; for me I don't know how they determine these rankings and how they got these numbers. For example, Columbia's average student debt is 71 K? Do they give out a lot of aid, how is that possible?

I know cost is dependent on a person's residency but maybe I haven't been considering the amount of aid schools give out; do some schools give out more aid than others?

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[Firik]

To my knowledge, there are no grants from fasfa (federal, pell-grant or any), only scholarships given by the school. I think some school have low average student debt because they paid in cash (parents support and other). Would be great if we could get the same grants as in undergrad.

 

[deleted767916]

I was thinking of doing HPSP if I don't get accepted to my instate school and/or feel that a private school is worth the HPSP. I know schools give out their own "grants" and "scholarships" based on need so maybe the private schools give out more aid in that case; I know one of my friends got a full ride to u Chicago for undergrad purely through scholarships. But he's super smart lol

To my knowledge, there are no grants from fasfa (federal, pell-grant or any), only scholarships given by the school. I think some school have low average student debt because they paid in cash (parents support and other). Would be great if we could get the same grants as in undergrad.

 

[ab117]

some school have low average student debt because they paid in cash (parents support and other).

This.

"Average Debt" will always be misleading because a decent amount of dental students in general have school paid for by well-off family, probably 5-10 per class are on HPSP, and then another small handful will get substantial scholarships. If you don't have any of those, what you actually want to find is the estimated cost of attendance and/or budget for the year. That will be the actual maximum dollar amount of loans you'll be able to take out. From what I've heard though, the Ivies do give out more scholarships for top applicants than a lot of other schools. Depending on the rest of your stats, with a 24 DAT you may have a decent chance of being offered one of those scholarships though.

 

[Cthuluhoop]

I was wondering on everyone's thoughts on this; for me I don't know how they determine these rankings and how they got these numbers. For example, Columbia's average student debt is 71 K? Do they give out a lot of aid, how is that possible?

Let's say for example, Dental School X has a class size of 10 and a total CoA of $500k. If you have 5 students paying that in full ($500k each), and then the other 5 students graduating with 0 debt (someone paid for it, or military scholarship), the average CoA for the school would be $250k, way lower than it would be for someone who has to take full loans.

Obviously that's a very simplistic example, but it shows the foundation of how the average can be skewed by those with very little or no debt. I wouldn't pay much attention to it and estimate your own cost of attendance including interest. Some schools are pretty generous with their scholarships, others aren't, it's worth a shot applying to schools that offer a decent amount of scholarships if you think you have the stats and application to compete for one

 

[deleted767916]

I wish I was smart enough; I had some personal problems so my sophomore year tanked my GPA. If I removed my sophomore year my gpa would be amazing but life is unpredictable.

This.

"Average Debt" will always be misleading because a decent amount of dental students in general have school paid for by well-off family, probably 5-10 per class are on HPSP, and then another small handful will get substantial scholarships. If you don't have any of those, what you actually want to find is the estimated cost of attendance and/or budget for the year. That will be the actual maximum dollar amount of loans you'll be able to take out. From what I've heard though, the Ivies do give out more scholarships for top applicants than a lot of other schools. Depending on the rest of your stats, with a 24 DAT you may have a decent chance of being offered one of those scholarships though.

 

[ab117]

I wish I was smart enough; I had some personal problems so my sophomore year tanked my GPA. If I removed my sophomore year my gpa would be amazing but life is unpredictable.

A 24 DAT is insanely good though. A lot of schools seem to consider high DAT scores much more important than super high GPA.

 

[wgodw1]

This is a screenshot of the 2015-16 DOE report on student loans by institution and CIP area. If you notice the mean is significantly less than the median because of HPSP and parents paying for school. You can find a lot of unbiased and hard numbers information online like this to help inform your decisions.

 

[PreDentToBe]

The numbers on that article are wrong. I've applied to ECU and they cater to disadvantaged students and their families certainly can't pay for education. There is no way a majority of the students in the class were paid for 100%. I attended a Q&A session they had last year and they said that their students graduate at about $100k in debt.

 

[wgodw1]

The numbers on that article are wrong. I've applied to ECU and they cater to disadvantaged students and their families certainly can't pay for education. There is no way a majority of the students in the class were paid for 100%. I attended a Q&A session they had last year and they said that their students graduate at about $100k in debt.

I go to ECU and that article was written during the time that the only data available was for the first class ever in the school and they did receive A LOT of financial assistance (bc being the first class at a new school is risky). Nowadays our average graduate is about $130k in loan debt.