This is funny to watch. Y'all know my stance on this.
To sum it up, here's a decision tree:
1. Did I get into a cheaper school? (YES - Go there, NO - See 2) Reason: Dental school tuition is admission fee for the not very exclusive club known as dentistry. Of course, there are other factors such as ease of program and are there other things intrinsic to the predoc program that could prevent me from graduating ?
2. If this is the only school you got into, then you need to think of the following:
2a. Do I really want to be a dentist at this cost?
Addendum to 2a: If money doesn't matter because you or your family have lots of it, WTF are you doing dentistry... unless you really love dentistry? Take your money and run. If this is just a means to an end and you have the means already, there's easier ways to make more money when you're starting with lots of money.
2b. If you really want to be a dentist at this cost, there's financial consequences. A higher debt load means less potential to invest more money for long term investments. Unfortunately, a DDS is a DDS, and the school doesn't matter. Now, if this is the only school that took you, then you don't really have much choice in getting in dentistry, and I don't believe wasting a year in non-productivity is any better since that one year of life in your prime is something you'll never get back.
2c. Am I in this for the lifestyle? (YES - You need a plan to make lots of money and get out of the debt trap. If you are just going to be another Generic_Dentist_001 making 120k a year forever, choose another profession that doesn't have relatively high entry costs. NO - How much of your lifestyle are you willing to sacrifice if you're not willing to go beyond mediocre dentist income?)
Now, here's a generic plan:
1. Get into dental school (reduce admission fee as much as possible)
2. Get your degree, get licensed.
3. Defer everything
temporarily (prevent drain on cash flows) + work as much as you can to save up money so that you don't have to borrow any money for a year. I'd prefer to get paid as a 1099 so I can avoid withholding and deduct as much equipment/supplies as I can on that 1099. Objective: Build a CHEAP office. Ownership is way more lucrative than associateship. Even if you were making at least 30k/month, that's still going to take forever to save a reasonable amount of money to pay off your loans, get your McMansion/apartment suite, have 2.5 kids, or whatever people are going for these days. Practice ownership gives you the opportunity to get into 100k+ territory (not production, but actual takehome).
4. Practice ownership - ramp up, heavy reinvestment into operations to increase efficiency, make tons of money, payoff loans in a year or so.
5. $$$
6. Make enough money to the point where you can walk away from it all and not give a ****, even if you can't sell your practice or hire associates.