Becker's Dental + DSO Review

6 BECKER'S DENTAL + DSO REVIEW // VOL. 2022 NO. 1 DENTAL PROFESSIONALS Cost of dental degrees may pose threat to industry: WSJ By Gabrielle Masson D ental degrees can leave students with significant debt and may threaten the industry's outlook, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. The issue spans graduate programs across big state schools to private universities. For dentistry, along with chiropractic medicine and veterinary medicine, every professional program with available data had median debts that surpassed median earnings two years after graduation, according to recent data from the U.S. Department of Education cited by the Journal. The median debts for many professional programs were often above $200,000 — more than what the fields' average annu- al pay is. Nationwide, dentists earned a median $164,000 in 2020, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Rising student debt is harming both individual borrowers and the occupations they're entering, some associations and ex- perts told the Journal. They cited data showing rural areas with dental provider shortages, in part because pay is typically low- er and they believe heavily indebted grads feel compelled to seek out higher pay. For recent dental graduates, the gap between debt and in- come was particularly large at two private universities: the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and New York University in New York City. For each school, the median debt was more than four times as much as median earnings, accord- ing to the Journal. NYU, which says it educates nearly 10 percent of U.S. den- tists, said current students should expect to spend more than $572,000 for its four-year program, including living expenses. NYU dental students who graduated in 2015 and 2016 had median debt of about $349,000 and, two years later, medi- an earnings around $82,000, according to federal data cited by the Journal. NYU grads who want to be licensed dentists in New York have to undergo extra training that reduces early career earnings, meaning "that figure does not even begin to meaningfully re- flect our graduates' earning potential," Rachel Harrison, NYU spokesperson, told the Journal. USC graduates included in the data had median debt of about $398,000 and median earnings of about $91,000, the Journal reported. Current USC students pursuing a DDS will spend about $546,000 to complete the program, including living ex- penses, the university told the Journal. Avishai Sadan, DMD, dean of USC's dental school, said early earnings may not be relevant "given the fact that 43 percent to 45 percent of our students indicated they are going on to complete advanced training programs" that may boost earnings later. In contrast, dental graduates from Greenville, N.C.-based East Carolina University, a public institution that only accepts state residents, had a median debt of about $131,000 and a median income that was about $120,000. "It didn't happen by accident," said Gregory Chadwick, DDS, dean of ECU's dentistry program, noting that the school's sole purpose is to create dentists who serve patients in low-income and rural state areas. "They have to have debt that's manage- able to go out to those areas." According to the American Dental Education Association, 2020 dental school graduates with federal loans owed an av- erage of nearly $305,000. Editors Note: The Journal's analysis of professional programs excluded medical school degrees. n Image Credit: Adobe Stock

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