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The Department of Education just released student loan debt data. Many of you won't be surprised as dental school graduates dominate the top 25.
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Student Loan Debt
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Data Home | College Scorecard
Find the college that’s the best fit for you! The U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard has the most reliable data on college costs,graduation, and post-college earnings.
collegescorecard.ed.gov
Top 10 - all dental schools.
Top 25 - 17 are dental schools.
Not a single dean from those schools bats an eye.
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Top 25 - 17 are dental schools.
Not a single dean from those schools bats an eye.
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What's also scary is that these medians seem low. For example, the estimated cost of attendance for Herman Ostrow (USC) is ~$520k (from there website). Half the class would have to be getting ~200k in scholarships to bring the median down to 400k. I'm curious as to how they found these median debt levels.
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schmoob
Because not everyone takes out student loans. International residents are not eligible for federal funding. And there are those who’s family can afford tuition. It skews the numbers.
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schmoob
Oh yeah, I forgot about those. I would agree.
Those are competitive so no more than 30% of a class receive those.
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Yes dental school is expensive. We know this. Next topic please
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deleted903013
Do we really though? Your average person in dental school or applying to dental school does not adequately grasp this or compound interest for that matter.
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Anyone who comes to this forum should be well aware of the cost as at least 1/3 of the posts in this forum at some point turn to discussion of the debt load of new dentists.
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deleted903013
That's because debt is the one issue that affects just about everything in dentistry. Want to go to residency, buy a practice, or pick a school? Debt needs to be considered. This is an issue that needs to continued to be hammered because people simply don't get it. If you go to the Top Law School forum, getting scholarships to make law school affordable litters their forum and has an impact. This is such an important topic, it needs to continue to be discussed here.
Yup, I am pretty sure most of the college students know the total cost of attendance for each of the dental schools that they apply to. If they didn’t do such simple research before they apply, then they can’t really blame on anybody else but themselves. If they don’t think they’ll make enough $$$ as a dentist to pay back the $500k student loan that they are about to borrow, they can always decline the school’s acceptance offer. They are not kids. They are old enough to drink and they should be able to make important decisions for their future.
Another sad thing is every time a HS or a 1st or 2nd year college student came on here to ask question about dentist’s income (so they can make decision whether to apply for dental schools or not), they got ridiculed by many people on this forum for caring too much about $$$.
At least I've tried to discourage them from making the mistake of going to expensive dental schools by saying that "you have to work 6 days/week."
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deleted903013
Wrong. They're people who have probably never lived on their own, owned property, or even had a full time job. Add on to that an entire generation of adults berating them from birth about how they have to go and get a degree. For all intents and purposes these are children. Yet, they can take half a million dollars in loans no questions asked. No 20 something with zero experience should be so much as allowed to be able to take out such a hefty loan. They're being taken advantage of.
20 is too young. Then at what age should they be qualified to take out student loans? 30, 35 , or 40?... and not considered to be cheated by the school?
At 20, they have 35-40 years to work to pay back loans. At 30, they will only have 25-30 years to work.
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deleted903013
No education in the country should cost anyone half a million dollars compounding at 7.5% so I would say nobody should be allowed to take out that much because an education should never cost that much at any age. I think all education should be cheap enough to the point where if someone goes to dental school they aren't decimating their finances so worrying about what age they might need to take out a small loan won't be a big deal.
I think this logic is part of the HIGH student loans debt problem. To justify you have 30-40 years career in you - so don’t mind it.
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deleted903013
On top of this, I don't think you'd be able to con a generation of 30 year olds to get into lifelong insanely high compounding debt to keep the system going. You need to target young, naive people with no experience. The system is predatory because it targets these inexperienced kids.
So it's not about the age when one has to be responsible for one's own action anymore but it's about the cost of education now? Too many blames.....I got confused. The schools don't hide anything. They put the cost of attendance out there for everyone to see. Nobody tricks anybody. If it's too expensive, then one can always decline the acceptance offer. Education is a form of financial investment...if it's too expensvive, don't go to dental school....and choose another field instead.
Look on the bright side. America is still the land of opportunities. Dentists who graduate from schools in European countries and in Canada don't have to pay any tuition (or pay very low tuitions). And yet, many of them want to come to the US because of better opportunity here. I know one orthodontist, who left his country, France, to practice in Cambodia.
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deleted903013
That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying the reason the scam works is because they're offering guaranteed half million dollar loans to kids for an education in a society where education is pushed heavily. Schools know kids are too naive to realize what large debt means so they continually jack up the prices in a predatory manner because the government will fund it regardless. Asking me the age for who should be able to take out half million dollar loans in loans guaranteed I view as a false premise because I don't believe any education should ever cost that much. The educational debt in this country is larger than the entire GDP of Russia at $1.5 trillion. Clearly this system is corrupt. Nobody my age is having children, nobody can buy homes, nobody is getting married and debt is a leading cause for all of that. When you see your friends moving back home because they're riddled with educational debt along with the things I just mentioned, you see how these people were manipulated. The "you should have known better" mentality is such a smug attitude. You weren't in their shoes. I was. I can totally relate to why they did this. They know next to nothing about how crippling compounding debt is and are pushed by everyone to go into higher education.
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Imagine being a d1 and thinking you are wiser than a seasoned orthodontist. I can't!
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deleted903013
So I'm not allowed to have a different opinion? I form my viewpoint based on someone who has experienced the pressure to go into higher education without any regards for debt. I have friends suffering from this. I have nothing but respect for the dentists on this forum. I simply disagree on one issue. I think a younger perspective is actually a good thing granted my generation is facing educational debt unseen by the previous generations.
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So let me get this... the BEST advise you can give to pre-dents:
1. Take the debt, even if it’s very HIGH DEBT with a steep compounding interest - if that was their only choice.
2. Work 6-7 days a week after dental school.
3. Look for a cheap practice to own, $50k or so. Smaller the practice, the better - 1,100 sft is deal.
This almost sounds like what these uber expensive schools tell their applicants in the admission process.
For me, it would be a solid NO if the total debt will exceed $600k+, and that would be close to half the specialists with dental school debt and 1/3 of all new dental school grads these days.
No one with almost 0 financial literacy (almost anyone under age 20) should trick themselves into borrowing that level of a debt - with a 50+ hours work week schedule plan. It would be very naive and dangerous.
I personally would refuse to write a letter of recommendation to a pre-dental student who was down to expensive schools like Midwestern or USC as his/her only choices of getting into dental school. I wouldn’t want to be any part of that scheme.
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My classmates in the international dentist program are all willing to take on 300k of debt for 2 years of school to be able to practice dentistry in the US. Most of them are very accomplished clinicians in their countries, in their mid-30s with families and kids, so I don’t think they are too naive to borrow that much without realizing that they have a good chance to be successful here in America as a dentist.
My personal situation is that I will graduate dental school in over a year with about 200k in debt. I don’t plan to specialize, but also have no desire to become an owner. Single, no kids, no family obligations but I don’t think I can stand living in the rural areas. What is your opinion regarding my future prospect in dentistry?
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You and I (and I am sure most members here as well) both agree that the system is corrupted. Unfortunately, I don’t think anything can be done to stop this madness because the politicians are afraid that if they stop giving out guaranteed loans to students, we would vote them out of power. And schools will not stop being greedy because they have no problem filling all the spots with highly qualified applicants, who continue to get guaranteed loans from the government.
Any responsible person can do a simple google search to find out how much they’ll have to pay back every month after dental school, such as this one here FinAid | Calculators | Loan Calculator (took me less than a minute to google this site). And then he/she can decide for himself if he should pursue dentistry or not.
My advice to young kids is to work hard in HS school, go to a local college/university, and live with the parents. And with good grades, the chance of getting accepted to a state dental school will be higher. Many of the state schools still charge reasonable tuition. But if they made mistakes (ie too much parties and drinkings in college) and had lower undergrad GPAs, then yes, what you wrote above would be my advice for them….it's still not too late as long as they are willing to work hard after dental schools to make up for their earlier mistakes.
Or don’t go to dental school, if they don't think they can work 6 days/week.
When the tuitions were lower 10-15 years ago, there was more room for errors. One could do wild things for several years and then decided to go back to school to study dentistry and became a very successful dentist. Now with so much debt, one needs to have better preparations for schools....and much less room for errors.
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It's pretty simple. Dentists make good money. Really good money. The reported incomes are a joke. This is why schools and students justify paying so much. Eventually it will reach a point where it's not worth it, but apparently we aren't there yet.
$200k loan is nothing. Many of my friends and my referring GPs who graduated from USC, Loma Linda, UOP, BU, Tufts 15-20 years ago owed slightly more than that and they all do very well here in CA. You should be fine but you won’t be rich if you work for someone else forever. When I was a student, I had no desire to be an owner either. In fact, I sold most of my instruments to my co-residents when I graduated. My wife kept pushing me to start an office but I kept saying no because I already had very good paying associate jobs. I didn’t want to quit my jobs to open a practice and lose the comfortable lifestyle. But 4 years later, I listened to my wife and started one from scratch. Despite having 4 years of experience, I was totally clueless about running an office. So to be safe, I kept my associate jobs and worked at my own offices on Saturdays and Sundays. To be safe, I tried to keep the overhead as low as possible and it worked. My income doubled in a year. Until now, I am still clueless and have to rely on my manager to handle all the insurance billings for me. I would be in serious trouble if she quits her job😱.
Work for a few years to gain clinical experience and then you should start a small low overhead office. Most of my successful GP friends only use 2-3 chairs and they do extremely well. My sister, who is a GP, only uses 2 chairs. When she started her office, she still worked for the corp 4 days/week...and at that time she was pregnant with her 3rd child.
Not as good as MD’s - when you factor in benefits; 401k’s, 10 week vacations, and other perks. At least the ones I know, and they very had low debt relative to dentists.
Don’t be fooled by the good income by dentists over the age of 45. They are a different breed of dentists and did not graduate with high debt. The older dentists (60+ of age) before them had even better debt to income ratio and were not pimped by insurance companies.
The trend is getting worse, certainly any practicing dentist can tell you that and would not be too keen to be financially in dentistry again under today’s debt climate.
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It’s also much harder to get accepted to medical schools than dental schools so that’s their rewards for studying hard in undergrad years to get into med schools. Many MDs have to work Saturdays and Sundays, at odd hours (at 2 in the morning), and long hours (10+ hours)….and they can’t really say no to these bad work schedules. At least we, owner dentists, can say no to working on weekends and decline to treat certain patients.
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deleted903013
Actually no. Students so young aren't capable of grasping debt. Hence, the student loan debt is $1.7 trillion. There is an orthodontist $1 million dollars in debt and many general dentists with over half a million dollars in debt. Clearly, some of the private schools have reached the point where they cost too much. A dean at one of my private school interviews told me I had high stats and should do HPSP because his school costs so much. At another one of my interviews, they did a big presentation on HPSP because the school costs so much. The schools even know they're outrageously expensive.
More than 1.... there was another orthodontist who graduated last year who borrowed more than $1M+ and said he couldn’t afford to pay the full monthly payments because of debt to income ratio was too high, so his debt is expected to balloon to more than $2M in a decade or so. Google Dr Mike Meru. Imagine how many are silent with $1M+ student loans.
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No, no. We have not hit that point yet when schools like USC can charge people over 100K/yr yet 2,500 people apply and 144 applicants willingly accept the debt load. Or NYU charging a similar amount and having 3,400 applicants/375 people accept spots. Is it wise to attend a school like that? Not in my opinion. But to others - the possibility of having a stable job and seemingly endless earning potential - it's worth it. Who knows how they will do in their careers - but they are not doomed until they doom themselves.
I believe there are ways to educate people on debt and there are people here who do a very good job on doing that. However, this forum doesn't do as good of a job educating people on how much opportunity dentists have. Dentists are not stuck making $120K/year. Or $150K/year...or $200K/year. People who have family members in this field and those who have done well know how good of a gig dentistry can be, but sadly we rarely hear from them. Probably because they are too busy working and living their life!
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deleted903013
Do you think the $1.7 trillion of student loan debt and rising is a good thing? Even you just said it's unwise to attend school's like NYU, USC, etc. The reason they get these application numbers is because naive kids have no grasp on debt, not because those schools are a solid financial investment. As I've said before, the only reason they can charge what they do is because people my age don't understand the financial implications of going to one of these schools. Dentistry is a great career and I'm lucky I only have to go 200k in the hole for it. However, when dentists have reached student loans of over $1 million and many have over half a million, clearly there is a problem here.
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You say it's because they're naive. I say it's because they are taking a risk. I'm not sure there's any way to tell. Regardless, some students will become overburdened with debt and whine and give up and become a slave. Some will say screw the debt - they are going to get the hell out of that debt and do whatever it takes to make as much as they can. Both [and more] are possible in dentistry. We should encourage people to go to cheap schools and view the glass as half full. We should educate people on how to become successful dentists - learning time management, impeccable communication, accounting, marketing, practice management...we could go on forever. We shouldn't pin future dentists in a corner preemptively when they have options available at this point in time.
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deleted903013
No, I'm fairly certain it's from naivety. When your entire generation has a student loan debt larger than the entire GDP of Russia, clearly they weren't making rational decisions. Student loan debt is actually one of the main reasons millennial aren't having kids. There is actually polling data on this. These weren't rationally thinking people. If you listen to the phone call of the orthodontist who was a million dollars in debt, you could hear the fear in his voice. He had no clue what he was doing.
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Well, I am glad you have it all figured out - which brings me back to my original post.
FACT: Majority of dentists don’t make a great income and are not rich.
FACT: Majority of dentists are not financially literate and business savvy - which a dentist needs to be successful.
FACT: Majority of new dentists will be females, and they will work less hours due to family obligations and will take home less - so that will lower “the average income of dentists”. Fewer higher income earning dentists.
FACT: Majority of dentists are NOT risk takers, so income will be highly limited to $200-300k at best.
FACT: Majority of young and new grads see success of a dentist through the lens of much older dentists who had far less debt and worked in the golden years of dentistry - and not someone in their age group, who is not successful, yet!
FACT: Majority of young and new grads want to live in urban and extremely saturated areas, and will be highly limited in opportunity of making a good income.
FACT: Student debt is the BIGGEST fear for new grads - and will delay and limit them in going after opportunities. Practice ownership (the best way for a dentist to make a good income) as a result is the lowest in history and declining.
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In the event that you are as bored as me, enjoy my thoughts below.
1. I agree. I don't think you are rich until you can have enough savings to live off of passive income. It seems pretty clear to me that if you can hit a certain income, are willing to make sacrifices, and marry a sugar mama, you can still have a hefty savings by retirement. Ok, just kidding about the sugar mama part, but there will be future dentists that are able to save up $5M-15M in their lifetime. Just the possibility of that alone is pretty nice. Idk about you, but I want that...or more.
2. Agreed. We take so many bogus classes in dental school and it wouldn't hurt to teach and pair us up with mentors in dental school; however, I'm not sure how many successful dentists are to be found in dental school outside of the ones that fell ill and were forced to give up dentistry.
3. I agree once again; however, it may be much easier for owners to hire associates because people are less willing to start owning. On the other side though, this could be bad for owners and great for corporate dentistry. Time will tell.
4. I agree again (I promise I won't always agree with you). Future dentists need to be taught that being educated in the sciences and dentistry only allows you the opportunity to be a dentist. I think too many dental students are taught dentistry and are not taught how to be great with patients or managing their time, overhead, staff, etc. Students need more clinical pearls! Enough with the bogus dentistry like making custom trays and using rubber dams for occlusal amalgams. Teach us how to be efficient.
5. It takes time to be successful. Many old dentists didn't have the amount of debt that we have, but they also didn't get paid as well starting out. New grads should fight to make at least $170K in my opinion. Corporate loves when new grads come out and are clueless to how much they are potentially worth. We should teach new dentists to know their worth, but to do that...definitely need to help students become faster and more proficient. Might not be able to speed things up in school because of the innate bureaucracy, but we should at least teach students real world dentistry. It's kind of amazing to me that so many students feel they MUST do a GPR after dental school. Is that an admission that school didn't teach s%*t? Well, at least the schools are teaching you how to test the babinsky reflex and if you are ever asked on Jeopardy what nerve makes you poop - you'll know it's the pudendal n.
6. Students who want to succeed need to practice in areas that they are willing to thrive in. For some, that may mean going rural (for multiple reasons). For others, it may mean going into those saturated suburbs. You have to compete in the real world and guess what - dentistry is no different. Just like high school...and undergrad...and dental school, you have to compete. Competition is not going to end so you mind as well learn what skills are necessary to develop into a dentist that is desirable to patients. I think dentists are smart enough to learn these skills if they were smart enough to survive dental school.
7. I agree the debt is a problem. It's interesting to think what the best ways to tackle debt are. Do you go the military route? Do you go the public health route? Do you commit to getting into "cheap" schools knowing that you will still be $300K in debt? Do you pay the debt off all right away? Do you hold it over your head and take the tax bomb at the end of the day (if that even exists in the future). These are personal questions. Some are willing to gamble on themselves for massive amounts of debt, some are not. In fact, we have seen threads on these forums where recent grads have $350K in debt and they paid it off in 2 or 3 years. That's pretty nice. Now imagine if you are making enough to pay off that $350K debt and your spouse also works.
Lastly, the median income for OMFS was ~460K if I recall correctly. AAO published years ago that orthos (owners?) were at 440K median. I can't imagine endodontists aren't up there when they can finish molar endos in 35 minutes. And let's not forget periodontists. Implant + bone grafts aren't cheap. Not sure about prosth and peds. As any of the specialists above, in my opinion, you should be making at least $300K. The good ones can make more: 1M. The best ones can make even more...2M, dare we say more?
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3% of all dentists are oral surgeons, 5% are orthodontists. They have invested a lot more time and debt than general dentists to make more - specially debt. You could say that is a delayed gratification to make more money (and to practice something they truly enjoy doing it and love), but many don’t make the average reported income until they are more experienced and established - typically 5-10 years after residency. Again, with rising debt, that high income threshold is delayed even further.
The point is - the ultra high student loans/debt is an uncharted territory, and there is no study available today to pre-dents that can show or support how much it impacts a dentist’s or specialist’s future success. Those of us who have been practicing for a decade or 2 know how challenging the profession is becoming without high student loans - with DSO’s, low fees from insurances, saturation and so on. Sounding the alarm for future dentists is not to discourage them from dentistry by itself, but the slow “financial degradation” that comes with it.
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Agreed. To future dentists: how are YOU going to manage your debt? Start by listening to things like this.
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Can't fix stupid, but you can ask the other 80% if their decision was worth it.
I think it’s pretty hard for a new grad to negotiate their starting salary in both corporate and private practice settings. Each year my school graduates over 100 new dentists and we are all hungrily looking for a job. So in the eyes of hiring corporate, new dentists are a dime a dozen.
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This is why you you need to know your worth. If you are worth $120K you will be worth $120K. Don't let yourself be worth $120K and if that's what they offer, tell them to f&^k off and go make what you are worth.
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I think a lot of it comes down to how set people are on where they want to end up. If you had told me that I would end up in middle of nowhere Wisconsin, I'd say you were crazy. But new dentists/students need to learn to go where the money is, which doesn't always align with their dream destination. My job hunt spanned from coast to coast, which allowed me to "shop" for the best job for me. But if you're set on living in one neighborhood in one big city, then you're "shopping" potential drops significantly
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It's interesting to wonder where did the sense of entitlement come from. Were predents told they could make $300K out of school in the suburbs of NYC or Miami? Who told them that? If you are unwilling to make the sacrifices to make the income you want, I don't think anyone feels bad that you are stuck making $150K w/ $500K debt.
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deleted903013
I feel bad for them.
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I expect you to win the Nobel Prize next year for your tolerance of delirium!
