I haven't heard back from other schools yet but hoping to get into UNE.
You don't think it's possible to pay back the loan in 10 years?
Nope. You’re paying ~500k. Including interest you’re looking at ~750k with monthly payments at 5.8k. So per year it’s ~70k. As a general dentist starting out ~125k, taxes bring it down to ~90k. You’d be living off of 20k for 10 years. You’ll need to pay for a house, family, retirement, etc. it’s possible but not a great 10 years.
With a rise in tuition of 4-7% per year and interest on your loans accruing while you're in dental school, I think you're looking closer to 600k of debt when you get out. It's unreasonable to assume you'll pay that back in 10 years.
Just anecdotally from talking with graduates and admin of different schools at research conferences. MWU-az's large selling point is they have one of the highest, if not the highest procedures/day numbers in dental school. So the students leaving seem to be used to doing higher productions per day once out and have a higher number of procedures. So there is less of an adjustment when moving to private practice and thus they can make more money that first year out.
Things like working for non-profits or teaching to get forgiveness. Understanding that though you dream may be to live in LA the saturation is not going to allow you to make enough to live well at least early on. Managing other debt (cars, credit cards, mortgages, etc...). Looking at higher, at least initially, yield jobs to start like corporate to pay down some of the debt early. Many students seem to understand how to work the current payment systems to make sure you're payments make sense.
Be careful with this thinking. Really ensure dentistry is the career you want. At $450k+ it’s going to be a very, very long road ahead for you to become solvent. You will really need to look into the coveted rural areas. You won’t be heading to the nice urban places you may want to live and it’s going to be a difficult 15 years or more years.
They are expected to continue rising for the foreseeable future. Those programs can be used, but there is no guarantee that they will be around in the future and although they will help you cash flow wise, you pay more over time + depending on the program have a huge balloon payment at the end.
You'll have to weigh out if IBR helps you or not. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't depending on your loan amount. Like @Blueshirts said, you better start saving for that tax bomb, because even though you're saving a decent amount of money by using IBR, that explosion is going to be a good chunk of your net worth.
I know at least 1 guy got multiple offers this year and another has had multiple interviews in the years D4 class. I know at least 4 who got accepted to ortho from this year and 2 in pedo. Not sure about any other specialties.
