Well, I would also love to raise dogs, leisurely study, cook, or whatever. But you can't just pick a career that you love without considering a ROI. Would you seriously recommend undergrads to pursue sociology, psychology, or history fields, knowing full well that their field is already saturated or that their degree is just not marketable and therefore useless?
When you come out of dental school with $400K, there's significant pressure for you to make >$100K straight out of school because high interest is accruing and capitalizing on every dime of your principle which you want to pay off as soon as possible. Most likely, you'll be limited to working in unfavorable areas at less than enjoyable hours than is necessary had you gone to a more affordable school. You'll be making loan repayments reaching almost half your income (-$48K) for at best ten years. You'll have a ridiculous debt-to-income ratio making it more difficult to buy a practice or a home. You end up holding off on that dream practice of yours that affords you the autonomy of a traditional dentist. Then you have second thoughts about having as many kids because you know you can't support them with as much resources as you would like. You obviously will not end up homeless. But you will start to realize that you spent all that effort, time, and money to end up in a career that compensates very comparably to that of a schoolteacher, who invested far less in their education, time, stress, and effort than you. In a profession where you see your day-to-day work as physical projects, it's hard not to make a mental note in the back of your head that 50% of all your apparent effort is going out of your pockets and into the pockets of lenders. That's not a good feeling. I think it is beyond your available imagination to comprehend living this situation for ten years. Now look at this from the perspective of a second generation American whose parents immigrated to the U.S., busted their tails off by working 11 hour days/7 days a week, not because they loved their work but because they had to. Don't you think their child feels some obligation to raise his/her parents' standard of living after they've sacrificed so much? How can he/she do so with student debt preventing even themselves from an above average standard of living, that is a humble, comfortable, and secure financial nest egg and not an excessive consumption pattern.
You could say that after repayment, everything is smooth sailing, but your qualify of life during those years of repayment may have been better had you pursued another beloved profession.
http://www.towniecentral.com/MessageBoard/thread.aspx?s=2&f=109&t=178204&v=1
