USC FIRST YEAR Cost of Attendance $173k 2023-2024

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My hygienists make about 110-120k package and this is new grad. 2 years associate degree from local college for 30-40k.

Dentist goes to school for 8 years and racks up 500k+ debt and starts at 150k. Then has to either open or buy a practice for another 500k-1 mil of debt.

If I had to choose a job today, I would do hygiene.
I finished school years ago. With my colleagues who did dual degree omfs programs and also paid for expensive medical schools they also had high debt. Eventually everyone pays it off and it’s uncomfortable at first.

Like I said I don’t know a single dentist who isn’t doing well.

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I finished school years ago. With my colleagues who did dual degree omfs programs and also paid for expensive medical schools they also had high debt. Eventually everyone pays it off and it’s uncomfortable at first.

Like I said I don’t know a single dentist who isn’t doing well.

ah yes personal anecdotes extrapolated to generalized opinions that everything is fine.

Reminds me of older generations telling me that they worked through college while paying off their loans and buying a house for 50k at crazy high interest rates! If they can do it why can’t millennials and younger people do it to?

Out of touch.
 
ah yes personal anecdotes extrapolated to generalized opinions that everything is fine.

Reminds me of older generations telling me that they worked through college while paying off their loans and buying a house for 50k at crazy high interest rates! If they can do it why can’t millennials and younger people do it to?

Out of touch.
Thanks for the comment. Wish you all the best.

Lol my agent told me the other day that back when she bought a house it was around 20 percent interest. 7-8 percent is free money to her lol.

I can say the same.
 
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Thanks for the comment. Wish you all the best.

Lol my agent told me the other day that back when she bought a house it was around 20 percent interest. 7-8 percent is free money to her lol.

I can say the same.

Like I said- out of touch- the amount she paid at 20% total price pales in comparison compared to todays house prices- even though interest rates are in theory lower.

You just made yourself look outa touch.

And this is coming from a guy who graduated 10+ years ago with my mortgage at 3% and loans all paid off- and like you- doing quite well for himself.

While posters like Charles sometimes writes stuff that makes me scratch my head- he acknowledges that it’s much harder today then it was yesterday. At least he isn’t out of touch.I jBest of luck!
 
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My hygienists make about 110-120k package and this is new grad. 2 years associate degree from local college for 30-40k.
This is why most of my friends here in CA don’t hire hygienists. They do all the cleanings themselves and get to keep the $100-120k to themselves.

Dental hygiene is an excellent career. If one doesn’t have good enough stats for dental school, I’d recommend one to apply for dental hygiene. Being a dentist is still a better option because it gives you the opportunity to be your own boss, which is priceless.

If a dentist settles for an easy 4 days/wk associate job for the rest of his life and signs up for IBR repayment plan (so he's only required to put aside 10% of his income for the student loan repayment), then he will be poorer than a hygienist who owes much less debt than him. If this is the plan he/she chooses, he/she should not apply for dental schools.
That’s a pretty sweet gig. If they pick up another shift as they work 4 days a week i- I can see it being 140-150k a year.
The dentists can do the same….work 5-6 days a wk and make $250-350k.
 
Like I said- out of touch- the amount she paid at 20% total price pales in comparison compared to todays house prices- even though interest rates are in theory lower.

You just made yourself look outa touch.

And this is coming from a guy who graduated 10+ years ago with my mortgage at 3% and loans all paid off- and like you- doing quite well for himself.

I just am not outa touch like you. Best of luck!
The millennials have almost no chance of being able to afford a house. A small 1100-1200 square foot starter home here in CA is around $1 million. For one to buy a house, his household income needs to be at least $400k and he needs to save at least $200k (which may take 3-4 years to achieve with such income) for a down payment. There is no job out there that pays a new grad (engineer, dentist, doctor etc) such high salary. I feel bad for the younger generation. The only way the millennials can get a house is to inherit one…...and they will get it because the parents can’t live forever.
 
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The millennials have almost no chance of being able to afford a house. A small 1100-1200 square foot starter home here in CA is around $1 million. For one to buy a house, his household income needs to be at least $400k and he needs to save at least $200k (which may take 3-4 years to achieve with such income) for a down payment. There is no job out there that pays a new grad (engineer, dentist, doctor etc) such high salary. I feel bad for the younger generation. The only way the millennials can get a house is to inherit one…...and they will get it because the parents can’t live forever.
Yup. Agreed.

While you and I have our disagreements on things- at least we aren’t outa touch with the general reality of things nowadays
 
The millennials have almost no chance of being able to afford a house. A small 1100-1200 square foot starter home here in CA is around $1 million. For one to buy a house, his household income needs to be at least $400k and he needs to save at least $200k (which may take 3-4 years to achieve with such income) for a down payment. There is no job out there that pays a new grad (engineer, dentist, doctor etc) such high salary. I feel bad for the younger generation. The only way the millennials can get a house is to inherit one…...and they will get it because the parents can’t live forever.
New grads (myself included) need to stay out of HCOL, saturated places like California. There are plenty of places in the country that are much more affordable to live (albeit maybe less desirable), where you can get a home for a lot less than a million. It may not be a mansion, but there are still some good sized homes at a lower price point in many places, although prices everywhere continue to rise.
 
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Do you know hygienists that have a higher net worth than a dentist ? I can’t think of a single one.

It must also be a fair comparison. You can’t pick a hygienist who is in their 50s, dual income, vs a fresh dentist with student loans.

In all honesty all the dentists I know are doing well. They have a relatively easy job with minimal liability in comparison to their medical counterparts.
To be honest, I don't know the net worth of anyone. Does anyone actually know the net worth of anyone else?

All you see is the outside, and judge from the outside, but you actually have no idea what someone is worth.

Plus, we are entering a new age, so the new reality isn't established yet. But compare a hygienist graduating with 30,000 college debt, earning 100k a year, graduating 4 years earlier than a dentist with 700,000 debt, and I don't see a clear path to that dentist having a higher net worth

I see tiktoks of nurses who spend a few years going rural and getting insane locum rates and it makes me wonder if a whole lot of nurses out there are worth way more than I would've thought
 
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To be honest, I don't know the net worth of anyone. Does anyone actually know the net worth of anyone else?

All you see is the outside, and judge from the outside, but you actually have no idea what someone is worth.

Plus, we are entering a new age, so the new reality isn't established yet. But compare a hygienist graduating with 30,000 college debt, earning 100k a year, graduating 4 years earlier than a dentist with 700,000 debt, and I don't see a clear path to that dentist having a higher net worth

I see tiktoks of nurses who spend a few years going rural and getting insane locum rates and it makes me wonder if a whole lot of nurses out there are worth way more than I would've thought
4 years earlier?

It’s a 2 year associate degree. 6 years earlier.

I dunno anyone’s net worth either.
 
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This is why most of my friends here in CA don’t hire hygienists. They do all the cleanings themselves and get to keep the $100-120k to themselves.
I always struggled to understand this. Sure, if you don’t have enough patients in your practice to support a hygienist, it’s better to do all of the hygiene yourself. In this case you should do better marketing and increase the number of active patients you have to the point where you can support a hygienist.

But if you have enough patients in your practice your hygienist should be seeing the cleanings so you can fill your schedule with much more productive procedures. It’s simple math. Your hygienists need to be bringing in more money than they’re costing you (or at a BARE MINIMUM breaking even so that you can treatment plan treatment) If you’re paying them more than they bring in then put protocol in place to increase production per hygiene appointment or shorten the appointment lengths to fit in more patients. Hygienists should know that they have to bring value to the practice in order to keep their job. I’d much rather do a $3000 bridge in an hour than have my schedule filled with $300 hygiene.
 
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I always struggled to understand this. Sure, if you don’t have enough patients in your practice to support a hygienist, it’s better to do all of the hygiene yourself. In this case you should do better marketing and increase the number of active patients you have to the point where you can support a hygienist.
This is indeed the case at most of the dental practices here in CA. Even with medicaid patients, dentists still don’t have a jam-packed schedule every day. In addition to working at their own offices, some dentists have to work part time 1-2 days a week at the corp to keep themselves busy. My sister has never hired a hygienist. And that’s how she’s able to buy her own office building + several rental properties.

Should do better marketing? How? There are probably more dental offices here in CA than there are gas stations.
But if you have enough patients in your practice your hygienist should be seeing the cleanings so you can fill your schedule with much more productive procedures. It’s simple math. Your hygienists need to be bringing in more money than they’re costing you (or at a BARE MINIMUM breaking even so that you can treatment plan treatment) If you’re paying them more than they bring in then put protocol in place to increase production per hygiene appointment or shorten the appointment lengths to fit in more patients. Hygienists should know that they have to bring value to the practice in order to keep their job. I’d much rather do a $3000 bridge in an hour than have my schedule filled with $300 hygiene.
Yes, if your office is beyond its maximum capacity…solidly booked 5-6 days/wk…..there are too many patients for you to handle by yourself…. you don’t even have time to go to the bathroom, then having a hygienist should help. This would be a good situation to have. Every dentist’s dream is to have a super busy practice like this. If I were a general dentist who has such successful practice, I wouldn’t mind paying the hygienist $110-120k so I could produce 10x more by doing all the high productive procedures.

When you have your own practice, you will see that not everything runs ideally. There are patients who don’t show up or call to cancel at the last minute because teeth are not the #1 priority in their life. There are plenty of posts on the dentaltown forum where the owner dentists complain about their hygiene schedule falling apart and they still have to pay their hygienist a full day salary. Once you promise to give your hygienist 1hr per patient, it’ll be hard for you to squeeze in more patients (in order to make up for the no shows) and make your hygienist works harder for the same pay. Once you give your hygienist a full time job, it’s hard to cut her days/hours. There are labor laws you have to follow etc.

Here is one of the many discussions among the GP’s on the dental town forum whether to hire a hygienist or not. Dentaltown - Where The Dental Community Lives®
 
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This is indeed the case at most of the dental practices here in CA. Even with medicaid patients, dentists still don’t have a jam-packed schedule every day. In addition to working at their own offices, some dentists have to work part time 1-2 days a week at the corp to keep themselves busy. My sister has never hired a hygienist. And that’s how she’s able to buy her own office building + several rental properties.

Should do better marketing? How? There are probably more dental offices here in CA than there are gas stations.

Yes, if your office is beyond its maximum capacity…solidly booked 5-6 days/wk…..there are too many patients for you to handle by yourself…. you don’t even have time to go to the bathroom, then having a hygienist should help. This would be a good situation to have. Every dentist’s dream is to have a super busy practice like this. If I were a general dentist who has such successful practice, I wouldn’t mind paying the hygienist $110-120k so I could produce 10x more by doing all the high productive procedures.

When you have your own practice, you will see that not everything runs ideally. There are patients who don’t show up or call to cancel at the last minute because teeth are not the #1 priority in their life. There are plenty of posts on the dentaltown forum where the owner dentists complain about their hygiene schedule falling apart and they still have to pay their hygienist a full day salary. Once you promise to give your hygienist 1hr per patient, it’ll be hard for you to squeeze in more patients (in order to make up for the no shows) and make your hygienist works harder for the same pay. Once you give your hygienist a full time job, it’s hard to cut her days/hours. There are labor laws you have to follow etc.

Here is one of the many discussions among the GP’s on the dental town forum whether to hire a hygienist or not. Dentaltown - Where The Dental Community Lives®
There’s definitely multiple ways to skin a cat. Dentists can be successful having different practice models and that’s part of what makes dentistry so cool.

Great thread on DT. Even for the OP, her hygienists are producing two times what they’re getting paid.

There are things you can do to mitigate cancelations. Have a waitlist of patients ready to go to fill the canceled slot. Charge a cancelation fee if it’s within 24 hours of the appt.

What are your thoughts on paying your hygienists similar to how many associate dentists get paid. The higher of daily minimum or a % of collections. Offer them a pretty good %. This incentivizes them to be more productive, see more patients, confirm appointments to decrease cancellations. This protects you from having to pay them $50/hour when nobody shows. One thing I like about dentistry is that you have a direct hand in how much you’re paid. Work hard, make money. There are some motivated hygienists out there who would love the opportunity to hustle and get paid a % of collections that comes out to >$50/hour.

Like I said previously. Hygienists need to be made aware that they need to bring value to the practice in order to keep their jobs.
 
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“Doom. Gloom. Buy gold. Buy my book. Be afraid.”

How many cycles of this do you need to go through before you learn?
 
There’s definitely multiple ways to skin a cat. Dentists can be successful having different practice models and that’s part of what makes dentistry so cool.
Yeah, it’s nice to be an owner because you can do whatever you want.

Great thread on DT. Even for the OP, her hygienists are producing two times what they’re getting paid.
The OP said "her 2 hygienists aren’t remotely producing 2X as much as what they are being paid.” It’s still a nice passive income for her. But since the OP was not fully booked and had some free time, instead of sitting around doing nothing, she considered doing some of the cleanings herself and saved $100K (or whatever the amount she had to pay a hygienist) for having to hire just 1 hygienist instead of 2. A lot of times, you just need to hire a much lower wage assistant to clean operatory for you after you do your own cleanings.... why waste $$$ to hire an expensive hygienist to clean the operatory for you?

There are things you can do to mitigate cancelations. Have a waitlist of patients ready to go to fill the canceled slot. Charge a cancelation fee if it’s within 24 hours of the appt.
This would be ideal. But in the real world, you don’t have an unlimited supply of patients even when you're in a much less saturated area. You don’t have a waitlist of patients ready to fill the cancelled slot any time you want. It also depends on the job of the front desk person to fill the appointment book. There will be some patients who call and cancel at the very last minute. Sure, you can charge the no show fee....and still keep the patients happy....good luck with this!

The only way to avoid having holes on the schedule is to “overbook”…..and be ready to work extra hard if all the patients show up. That’s what most corp offices are doing. I do the same at my own offices. I usually overbook by putting as many patients in 1 day as possible so I can keep my assistants busy. And since I don’t have enough patients to have fully booked day in all 5 days of the week, I only work 2.5 days a week at my own offices and I only hire part time assistants to save $$$. And for the other free days in the week, I work for the corp office to supplement my income.


What are your thoughts on paying your hygienists similar to how many associate dentists get paid. The higher of daily minimum or a % of collections. Offer them a pretty good %. This incentivizes them to be more productive, see more patients, confirm appointments to decrease cancellations. This protects you from having to pay them $50/hour when nobody shows. One thing I like about dentistry is that you have a direct hand in how much you’re paid. Work hard, make money. There are some motivated hygienists out there who would love the opportunity to hustle and get paid a % of collections that comes out to >$50/hour.
Offering the hygienist higher pay (either higher daily minimum or higher % of collections) means you’ll have higher overhead…..and your own pay will be less. From my experience, nobody cares about your practice the way that you do. Even when I offer my manager a bonus for every new case that I start, my managers still wants to go home on time and tries to reschedule the start patient on another day.

If your office is busy but doesn't have enough patients for a full time hygienist, you can hire a part time hygienist, book as many patients one day as possible, make her work really hard.....and in return, you offer her a good % of production. I think it may work.

Like I said previously. Hygienists need to be made aware that they need to bring value to the practice in order to keep their jobs.
Many hygienists don't care about working hard to keep their jobs. If you don’t pay them enough, they’ll leave you for a better job somewhere else. A lot of dentists spoil their hygienists with very high salary and they are afraid to make their hygienists to do too much work……and therefore, many hygienists now want at least $50-60 an hour and only want to see 1 patient per hour. There is a hygienist shortage problem in some states…. but not in CA because most dentists in CA don’t need hygienists.
 
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Here is another dentaltown thread that talks about how to run a hygienist free office. With the crazy amount of student loan that new grads have, they need to keep the overhead as low as possible.

 
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I work for a corp office, this office only has 1 hygienist. This was her schedule yesterday. She had 5 patients scheduled for her 8-hr day (originally 6 scheduled but one morning pt cancelled). She still complained about having to do two "back-to-back" SRPs. Mind you, we give her 90 minutes for 2 quads of SRP and she has a 90-min lunch. When I told her that no we're not rescheduling her afternoon SRP she threw a tantrum and threatened to give her 2 weeks notice. While she gets paid an hourly rate of $50/h, I am paid on % of production so I wish the corp would just fire her and get me another assistant to do cleaning for all hygiene patients.
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There's a fundamental shift coming. In 20 years people will look back on this time and think it is bizarre. But it could go either way, and I actually don't know which way it will go.

It 20 years it could be "those young dental students were absolutely stupid to take on that amount of debt, they were never able to get ahead".

Or it could be "Wow 20 years ago you used to be able to go to university and buy your way to middle class. It was hard work and took a lifetime of work but you could make it happen through working and earning an income. These days it doesnt matter how much you work, you can never get ahead. The only people middle/ upper class are those who come from familys with assets."

30 years ago you could work in a factory, have a stay at home wife, and still be able to afford a house. Those days are long gone.

These days, we get taxed so much higher on income than assets, that it makes sense that in a generation people may find that the only way to make money is through assets. And the only way to get assets is through inheriting it. The class divide will only get bigger with time.

I think it's stupid to go into this level of debt, but some days I wonder if we are the last generation who can be poor, go to university and make it middle upper class. Time will tell

This is probably the most insightful statement on the thread. I think most people sense it, but I don't think we have really come to terms with the fact that we are entering into an era of modern feudalism. Large corporations (Blackstone) buy entire neighborhoods to rent homes, which limits opportunities for the average person to ever own a home; educational institutions have increased the cost of tuition to the point where a debt-free degree is only attainable to a very small portion of the population; and virtually all the wealth is controlled by a small group of people who determine what the politicians (on both sides but more obvious on the right) say and which policies they are allowed to enact.

Let's be clear, these are all the result of policy decisions. None of this is inevitable, but is unlikely to change until average people decide to stop voting against their economic interests.
 
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This is probably the most insightful statement on the thread. I think most people sense it, but I don't think we have really come to terms with the fact that we are entering into an era of modern feudalism. Large corporations (Blackstone) buy entire neighborhoods to rent homes, which limits opportunities for the average person to ever own a home; educational institutions have increased the cost of tuition to the point where a debt-free degree is only attainable to a very small portion of the population; and virtually all the wealth is controlled by a small group of people who determine what the politicians (on both sides but more obvious on the right) say and which policies they are allowed to enact.

Let's be clear, these are all the result of policy decisions. None of this is inevitable, but is unlikely to change until average people decide to stop voting against their economic interests.
It would be wise for the “powers that be” to study up on the French Revolution…

Big Hoss
 
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The economic era of "cheap money" is ending. The Fed is going to keep the interest rates high to try to tamper the dramatic inflation. Those high interest rates are going to be passed on by banks to consumer loans. The government is going to feel the pinch and increase loan rates as well. Forgiving graduate school loans after 25 years of below-minimum payments is a leaky pipe of water that I can't imagine goes unpatched as the federal government continues to struggle financially. Also, who wants to spend 25 years watching your debt blow up to millions, then needing to pay an enormous tax bill?

Eventually people thinking about dental school are going to see that the numbers don't add up. I think the interest in dental will drop suddenly rather than gradually. We're not there yet. But when we get there, these schools are goners. Even with wealthy students, the path just won't have any value.
we are gradually getting there, the application to accepted ratio was 2.2 10 years ago, now it's 1.7. Too many new schools keep springing up.
 
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