Yes, it's 9.08% right now. I just wanted to be as conservative as possible in my calculations
I just ran the numbers for Harvard and Columbia dental assuming a 4% increase in cost and 9.08% interest rate on loans. Harvard is $637,313 and Columbia is $664,531 after interest. With a 6 year OMFS residency you're easily over one million dollars, potentially as high as 1.2-1.3 million with med school tuition. We'll reach a point where even the "just do OMFS™" won't be justifiable because of the cost.
Can you run the numbers of becoming a PA and then investing your income over 10 years and seeing how long it takes omfs to overtake? My guess would be 25 years after starting university for both options, so like around 45 years old. Not far from retirement by that stage...
You were pretty spot on with your guess. My numbers are they catch up, on average, around age 41-43. This is obviously just an estimate because I was using averages for both PA school and dental school. An OMFS who goes to Harvard, then pays four years of medical school tuition at UCSF will leave with probably 1.5 million of student loan debt and may never catch up to someone who attends their state PA school.
Max is paying two years of medical school tuition and 4 years paid residency
That is true for some programs but based on these sources, you have to pay for four years of med school at UCSF Student Cost of Attendance | UCSF Student Financial Services https://career.ucsf.edu/sites/g/files/tkssra2771/f/DentistryOralSurgeryResidencyFAQ.pdf
That is beyond STUPID 🤣
Yeah you're literally paying for both dental school and medical school while getting hit with a 9.08% interest rate that you can't touch for 10 years. I remember a few years ago when everyone was freaking out about Dr. Mike Meru being an ortho in one million dollars of debt but I have to imagine that will soon be much closer to the norm. People aren't freaking out about it anymore because we've become so numb to it. People now consider 375k as "cheap" for a state school. Total insanity.
Wow that’s ******ed
I remember hearing about the case of Mike meru... do we have any updates on his situation? Would be very interesting to see how that progressed
I assume he's still just making minimum payments and saving up for the tax bomb but he's stayed out of the public light since his WSJ article so who knows.
He faked his own death and fled to Cuba.
And to the predents reading this, that $90,000/year you’d have to pay is just to keep your loans from snowballing. Furthermore, that $90,000 is coming from after tax money. You’re going to have to earn around $120,000/year just to cover that interest. How on earth are you supposed to chip away at the loan principal?!
The thing about the interest rates on these loans is they change every year. They're 9.08% this year but could be 11% next year or 8%. Back when I was in dental school I think my highest interest rate was like 6 or 7%. I would've never guessed they'd ever be 9.08%, so now I wouldn't be surprised if it gets higher sadly.
I asked ChatGPT and this was its answer "So yes—if Treasury rates keep climbing, Grad PLUS loans could hit the cap of 10.5% next year. Not guaranteed, but not out of the question either."
Subject to change at the whim of the government.
I’m pretty sure the loan rate is tied to the 10-year Treasury Bill rate. Unless the economy absolutely falls apart, I don’t see those rates coming down anytime soon…
If interest rates get get jacked up any higher the student loan bubble will burst faster. Silver lining ig.
I don't think there will be a burst of the student loan bubble, ever. I think to cause a bubble to pop, with anything, there needs to be a sudden change where people suddenly can't cover the repayments. Dentists and doctors will always be able to cover their student loan payments. They graduate university, are ambitious and eager to work hard and earn money and dont really have much other debt, they generally haven't bought a house yet, don't have kids yet, have minimal expenses as they have been living like students. So when they graduate, if something suddenly changed, like a significant drop in income from a recession, they are able to weather that drop in income. The student loan issue is a slow burn, dentists graduate and then suddenly realise they aren't in a great financial situation and have to work harder and longer and delay things like getting married, buying a house and having kids, but i don't think they will ever default on their loans, which is what is needed for the bubble to pop.
It’s happened before in dentistry, and it’s going to happen again…
A lot of good insights here. It really is the government loan forgiveness programs that are holding this house of cards together. If IBR, PAYE, and whatever other loan plans there are disappeared the entire dental education system would collapse tomorrow. With that said, the system still isn't sustainable. It will collapse regardless. At this rate, a decade or two from now 1 million dollars for private schools will be the norm. The system won't survive that.
They’re going to plan for loan forgiveness (Dr Mike Meru) style.
I tried to warn them and this was the one reply I got.It blows my mind reading the USC school specific thread how many people there are eager to hand over half their earnings for the next 20+ years. Literally no one on the thread is worried about the debt.
Big Hoss
While this is so stupid on their behalf, I can totally relate. Back when I was their age a year felt like an eternity, and to spend the last few years (which at that point is like a quarter of your entire life) trying to get into dental school, and then you get accepted, it would be an incredibly bold move to turn it down to spend a year in limbo not knowing if you'll get another cheaper acceptance in a year, and seeing everyone else around you go off to university and start thay next big chapter of their life
100%. That could've been me a decade ago. This is why kids shouldn't be allowed to take out 700k loans. The system- the schools, their teachers, their parents, the government- have failed them.
Reading all of that in hindsight is crazy... would love to hear from people who stayed in school and how they're going with loans
I get the impression that the HPSP was this peripheral idea for many in the 2000s into the 2010s. Now it’s a mandatory talking point. Many of these schools shouldn’t even be remotely considered without it.
When I interviewed at Columbia years ago, they actually had a specific talk for us on HPSP. I interviewed at another private program where the program director straight up told me that his school was expensive so I should do HPSP to pay for it. The schools all know the prices are ridiculous.
When I’ve mentored predents, I explicitly tell them to not even apply to schools like USC, NYU, etc. because I don’t want them to be in a position to have a school like that as their only acceptance. If someone is in that position, the desperation will cloud their judgement. There are so many better career options than being a dentist owing $800,000 in student loans.
I graduated from USC a couple of years ago. That part of the presentation was hilarious.
