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Salary according to Midwinter
Started by Surive123
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Last line, 40-90k. LOL WUT.
I can believe the low end of 40k if they are including resident dentists. 90k seems low for the upper range though. Browse around SDN and you can find many stories of dentists making over 100k first year out. Also if they are trying to paint a gloomy picture, they could have done a better job than quoting the average or $180000 of debt, as many graduates face much much more.
$180000 or more in debt!?! wow that's insane. How much does dental school cost for all you guys in 'Merica. Here in Canada at the dental school in my hometown that i'll be attending within the next 2 years the tuition is ~$34000 per year and that's including everything related to the school. I don't anticipate more than $100000 in debt by the time i'm done
EDIT: I also hope to make ~100000/year right out of school. Wishful thinking maybe but I don't think it's too unrealistic
EDIT: I also hope to make ~100000/year right out of school. Wishful thinking maybe but I don't think it's too unrealistic
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Sounds like you (and all the Texans) are in a nice position. $180k is on the low end of the debt spectrum. Check out the cost of schools like USC, NYU, Penn, Tufts, etc, and you'll see terrifyingly large COA numbers.
I graduated from dental school in 2001. My first job paid commission only. The owner dentist would only give me walk-in emergency patients while he saw all the high dollar crown and bridge work. I rarely made over $1000 per month. Most of the time, I twiddled my thumbs. After 3 or 4 months I left. It was a hard but valuable lesson to learn. Never take a job on commission only. The employer has no incentive to put patients in your chair. The next job I had only paid $45,000 per year but at least I was able to negotiate a guaranteed salary. I have a friend in New York that makes $300/day as a general dentist. At 4 days per week and taking no vacation, that equates to $62,000/year. The point is that the low end is really low. Don't forget those making less because they can't find any work or can't find enough work to keep themselves busy full-time. As an associate general dentist, I would shoot for $100,000/year. If you end up making more, that's great. General dentists making over $150,000 as associates are in the minority.
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Btw, the ADA reports that average debt for graduating dentists is $250,000. That figure includes those that had their school paid for by parents. If you exclude those fortunate ones from the statistic, the average debt for those that didn't have financial help would be revealed to be higher.
With numbers like that they have got to include the residency numbers, which I think should be excluded since I consider residents "still in school." Based on my knowledge, unless you work in a supersaturated market like CA or NY it is not hard for a new grad to early 100k his/her first year. I earned 150k my first full year out and this is with a poor collection rate but I did work very hard (which is why I think the other thread where a poster claiming to do 400k as an associate is BS). With an office that is busy with a healthy pt flow, maybe 200-250k, but beyond that I don't see how it is humanly possible to produce that much dentistry.
My brother currently works as hygienist for a dmo chain in NorCal. One dentist they just hired there have been averaging $5000 everyday for the month. Pretty incredible since it's all dmo. They upsell everybody to sc/rp, periochip, zirconia, ultrasonic brush. Their yelp review 1.5 stars but they don't care.
$5000 in a DMO setting is indeed pretty darn high, must be upselling the hell out of all patients. Sounds like almost certainly something shady going on there.
Yup. I have pointed this out many times. Avt. debt stats are BS. The 'real' average for a private school is around 450-500K.
USC first year is now $125K. Multiply 4 years plus 4 years undergrad and it's $600K.
Texans? am I missing something? I'm from Canada btw.
WTF @ 400k debt from school.
Maybe i'm missing something but that doesn't seem worth it AT ALL. not for the 100k/year I would expect to make when finished. Jeeze you Americans really are crazy 😉
EDIT: do you mean to tell me 1 year of dental school is 125k?
WTF @ 400k debt from school.
Maybe i'm missing something but that doesn't seem worth it AT ALL. not for the 100k/year I would expect to make when finished. Jeeze you Americans really are crazy 😉
EDIT: do you mean to tell me 1 year of dental school is 125k?
Yup. I agree. I read an anecdote recently of a guy who did USC undergrad and USC dent and finished with around 1 mil total debt. And here I am thinking that is a lot for Ortho. LOL.
notsureifsrs
can any of you guys estimate how much this guys makes after finishing USC dental school?
I agree, I do not think it is worth it at all. I think many dental students and dental students to be are severe uninformed about the significance of their debt. Out of curiosity does anyone know how common 300k or 400k+ debt is becoming at some of these private schools like BU, Tufts, NYU, USC, etc? Does anyone go there who could comment on this? Are the numbers listed above outliers or the norm?
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I mentioned Texans because their state schools cost significantly less than any other in the country. And $400k (let alone $600!k) is way beyond my comfort level. Had those schools been my only option, I would have had to seriously reconsider my career choice.
aaah I see now. Out of curiosity and if you don't mind sharing, where do you go to/plan to go to DS, how much debt do you expect to be in and how much money do you expect to make when finished. Again omit any questions that you aren't comfortable answering
I made the tough choice to go with my cheapest option (state school) over schools with bigger names and more of a prestigious reputation. I'm slightly non traditional and have worked full time for the past couple years, so how much I'll be in the hole is still up in the air and depends on how I'd like to use the savings I've collected. I'm the first Dentist-to-be in my family, so I don't have any mentors or jobs already lined up and any figure I offer up in terms of salary after graduation would be speculation. That said, from the advice I've gotten from folks I've shadowed, $100k annually seems to be the going rate for freshly minted GPs. But I suspect that number is widely variable based on the setting in which you plan to practice, the dentistry you plan to do, the connections you make after school, etc. By the way, I haven't started dental school yet, so take this all "with a grain of salt", haha.
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Disclaimer: I do agree the cost of private dental education has risen to amounts that are frankly quite ridiculous for a degree. However I feel the need to state some actual numbers and not n=1 anecdotes.
For 4 years of dental education:
Penn is $341,721 (add the numbers up) + room/board (http://www.dental.upenn.edu/academic_programs_admissions/dmd_program/tuition_fees).
USC is $324,785 + the cost of living (https://dentistry.usc.edu/programs/dds/cost-of-attendance/).
Tufts is $309,867 + the cost of living (http://dental.tufts.edu/admissions/...ormationcost-of-attendance/cost-of-education/).
NYU is $303,958 + the cost of living (http://www.nyu.edu/dental/financialservices/tuitionfeesexpensesdds.html).
Roseman is $302,297 + the cost of living and some other stuff (http://www.roseman.edu/students/students-students/bursar/tuition-and-fees-1).
UOP (3 years) is $333,606 + the cost of living (http://dental.pacific.edu/Academic_...nd_Fees/Estimating_Your_Attendance_Costs.html).
While cost of living varies from place to place, lets not get ahead of ourselves with these inflated numbers you are quoting.
Salary is too variable. Location? Chain? Associate? Own private practice? Academia? Clinical Instructor? Specialist? AGI vs take home pay? State tax?
450-500K is not unreasonable. You have to remember that each year of school the loans accrue interest at 7.35%. Now that the rates are variable, that rate could even go up in the next few years! Basically, any private school out there will cost 450-500K.
Most are uninformed. The required entrance and exit loan counseling isn't enough to successfully inform most students the amount of debt they are taking on. Those numbers are accurate if the student receives no outside sources of help and borrows most of the cost of attendance.
However, the government has realized that those numbers are nearly impossible to pay back on a 10 year standard repayment and has implemented the PSLF/IBR/PAYE programs to help mitigate the the burden taken on by many students (not just dental students).
Holy !@#%... makes me glad I went to my state school. That kind of debt is almost unbearable for a GP.
Oh I agree, won't doubt that. The current interest rates are 5.41/6.41 as of now but may change.
Would be nice to have some more data from student exit surveys on how they paid for their dental education and what their loan balance is.
Yup. Imagine if one did private DDS, and then did a 6-year OMFS program. The debt comes out to about 1 mil. Granted, an OMFS can handle that eventually. But still. That's a nut.
You're set with that OMFS salary though.
For GPs though, you are almost pushed into IBR/PAYE since there is no possible way to make those payments with an associate salary. Could probably make the extended repayment work beginning at a dental chain though.
Not to nitpick, but stafford is 5.41% this year and they aren't variable in the sense that most people use the term variable. They are fixed rate loans that are tied to an index that can change year to year.
That's true--just recently the rates were lowered. I believe the potential top interest rate is about 9-10%.
Why dental school tuition in most cases is much higher than med school? 400-500K in COA? What a monthly payment for such number would be after dental school? 4-5k/month... You would have to make 250k/year to be able handle such payment and enjoy a comfortable middle class life . That is crazy!
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In the land of the skunks the man without a nose is king
One reason is that direct care is provided during 3rd/4th year. Another is that the government allows the COA to be borrowed mostly utilizing Direct PLUS loans which means that schools can increase tuition as much as they want since they will get the money regardless.
Standard 10 year repayment would be between $5000-$5500. Extended 25 year repayment would be around $3000. Most manageable way would be PAYE which would be 10% of income/12 months for 20 years.
Sometimes I read that the average salary is 120k+ 1st year out and sometimes I read the average salary is 40k. Then I see owners saying they make 150k while others say 300k+. All this back and forth makes my head hurt. I hope the lower figures are people practicing in the super saturated markets (SoCal, NYC, etc...) while the higher figures are completely achievable by living in a not so densely populated areas. 400k debt is not going to be fun to pay back if I end up making less than 120k with a nice yearly pay increase year after year.
There aren't as many people as you would think that pay for dental school solely with loans. I know tons of people whose parents are paying or are doing the military route. I'd be surprised if half of my class uses loans.
Tuition is going to continue rising partly for this reason. There's enough people going to dental school that really don't need or use the loans...
Say, $75,000 a year for tuition and school, add $20,000 for living and food (NY, SF, Boston, etc, this is not unreasonable at all). that is $95,000 a year. Add in 7% interest a year and you now owe $451,000 on the day of your graduation. Also, using the link you posted for USC, you will owe $512,000 on the day of graduation (same 7%). Note that these are not including an annual increase in tuition and cost of living due to inflation, etc. Seems as though the numbers stated are pretty consistent to me...
Only 1/2 your class uses loans? Wow ...
I would think that only instate students at cheap public schools would have tons of people not taking loans. A lot of OOS Public school tuition and private schools are going to be at least $60k in fees per year.
I used to know two people who graduated from UBC - Vancouver, Canada. $300 000 in debt each
Thank liberals for that. The Federal government is like Santa Claus when it comes to giving loads of money. But the government is worse than Santa Claus because if you do your job in life, and make money because of it, the Federal government will take your hard earned money (via taxes) and distribute it to naughty kids and naughty academics at these new schools. The most ludicrous school to open up recently is Bluefield in Virginia. It asks soo many questions about your church activities.
Thats one thing graduating high school, starting college and looking into the job market has taught me... Work your ass off to make your money and give it to the lazy pricks who dont even work. Kinda kills your motivation doesnt it? Ive seriously contemplated working an easy low level job and thus pay less taxes
Glad you're interested in going into dentistry and not politics.
Dentistry is affected by politics.
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Yup. And consider that many people emerge from college today with 50K of debt and the graduating debt load easily increases to nearly 600K. Throw in a year of GPR and our private dental school graduate, who attended a state school, is comfortably over 600K. The University of WA and all UC schools (undergrad) have a COA that is well north of 100K. I'm not sure what to say. Inflation? Loan program? All I know is that all of this is because of federal intervention into the marketplate.
Ringo Starr described this phenomenon so eloquently:
"Whatever government touches turns to $hit."
Go to the cheapest school--always.
"I don't believe in the Beatles. I believe in me." - John Lennon
Without those loans the only people in schools would be the ones with rich parents
Not really. Back in the day, private schools loaned the money out themselves to poor students, not the government. The costs were much lower. Do you really think schools want to take jeopardy in receiving the kind of negative publicity/ poor rankings that would come from having only rich kids??? Schools would learn to cut costs, wouldn't give lofty retirement and pension plans, and would keep tuition down. I would be for federal student aid only if it limited pension plans that faculty could receive and only if schools met quality requirements and only if schools were keeping costs down. If a school couldn't keep tuition from rising, I would not give money to that school. The private sector and private businesses have to make decisions when their costs go up and they have to downsize their ambitions, why shouldn't universities do the same (since most universities are pretty much greedy money mills anyways) Let the state governments fund incompetent colleges and let the citizens of that state want to waste their money, pay more taxes. Texans or Alaskans, or Arizonans (who come from fiscally responsible states) shouldn't have to subsidize the incompetence of California's university system.
