Paying for dental school

[melco92]

Hi everyone. I recently graduated high school and am considering a career as a dentist, and I looked up the cost of attendance at two dental schools in Illinois (Midwestern and UIC) and unless I'm not understanding something, they both say that, including things like room and board and other living expenses, it costs about 100k each year. Is this right? Unless you have rich parents, how in the world are you supposed to pay for this without graduating with 400k in debt?

And how much scholarship and grant money does the average dental student get a year?

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[Member902507]

Hi everyone. I recently graduated high school and am considering a career as a dentist, and I looked up the cost of attendance at two dental schools in Illinois (Midwestern and UIC) and unless I'm not understanding something, they both say that, including things like room and board and other living expenses, it costs about 100k each year. Is this right? Unless you have rich parents, how in the world are you supposed to pay for this without graduating with 400k in debt?

One word for you: L O A N S .

And how much scholarship and grant money does the average dental student get a year?

In my opinion, zero. Unless your parents have zero income, then you'll get a few thousand. Also, if you're a phenomenal student, you might get some scholarship from the school itself while applying.

All of this said, I still think it's a good profession to be in. Some schools are much more expensive than other. UIC and SIU are EXTREMELY expensive for OOS (out-of-state) students. Pretty much around 450k or more. So look into your state schools and other "cheap schools".

Oh! I almost forgot, you could get a fully-funded dental school education if you sign up with the army, etc. I'm not really familiar with the process because I'm not in it myself, but they'll pay for everything and will even give you a monthly stipend as long as you serve for the number of years that you had them pay for you. This could be done for undergrad as well.

Good luck! And it's great that you're researching this now!

 

[jmh018]

Search the forum, there are plenty of answers on here but the answer you will find is loans. There aren't really any other options other than a very rich parent which I unfortunately do not have

 

[littlemisspiggy]

yep, LOANS!