Becoming a dentist has never cost more, and the gap between total debt and the salary payoff is reshaping the question: Is the degree still worth it?
Average first-year resident tuition at U.S. dental schools reached $62,239 in the 2025-26 academic year, up 39.7% from $44,535 in 2015-16, according to American Dental Association data. Nonresidents now pay an average of $80,372 a year, up 30.7% over the same period. Attending dental school in the U.S. can cost nearly $500,000 at some institutions, according to the ADA.
General dentists, meanwhile, earn an average of $191,350 per year, according to May 2025 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. State averages range from $139,320 in Idaho to $241,580 in Missouri.
The increasing debt load
Dental students who graduated in 2025 owed an average of $297,800 in education debt, according to the Education Data Initiative. Of that, $280,300 came from dental school alone. Average dental school debt has risen 587% since 1996.
Most students finance at least part of the degree. Seventy-nine percent of dental school graduates take out loans, and 76% of 2025 graduates with debt used federal Grad PLUS loans.
“It’s a cost issue,” Thomas Allen, DDS, of New Jersey Endodontics in River Edge, told Becker’s in July. “They are considering the return on investment, and it’s becoming more and more upside down.”
Jillian Woodruff, DMD, of Concord Center for Family Dentistry in North Carolina, put it plainly: “The soaring cost of dental school is my greatest concern for the future of dentistry.”
The case for the degree
Even with the steady climb in tuition costs, demand for the profession hasn’t faded. U.S. dental schools graduated 7,015 students in 2025, up 20.7% from 5,811 in 2015, according to the ADA.
U.S. News & World Report ranked dentists among its 100 best jobs for 2026, citing a $172,790 median salary and 5,400 projected new jobs.
“I don’t believe dentistry is becoming unattainable,” Murat Ayik, DDS, of Woodhill Endodontics in Dallas, told Becker’s in July. The challenge, he said, is “ensuring they have access to financial pathways, mentorship and educational models.”
“A well-run practice can provide the cash flow necessary to aggressively reduce student loan debt,” Paul Mabe, DDS, owner of Naples Family Dentist in Florida, told Becker’s in June.
Fewer dentists own practices
The path to practice ownership has narrowed, especially for younger dentists. Among dentists in private practice, 72.5% owned their practice in 2023, down from 84.7% in 2005, according to the ADA Health Policy Institute. Among dentists younger than 30, ownership fell from 25.4% to 8.8%.
Some dentists argue that the ownership dream is fading for structural reasons, and point new graduates toward dental service organizations or dental partnership organizations.
“Solo practice is simply no longer economically practical. Joining a DPO as a partner allows a young dentist to benefit from built-in mentorship,” Barry Sporer, DMD, a dentist and partner at Dallas-based MB2 Dental Partners, told Becker’s. “Furthermore, if you choose the right DPO, you retain the clinical independence of private practice — making all your own diagnostic and treatment decisions — while leveraging the back-office management support and vendor purchasing power that only a larger organization can provide.”
Others see it as a choice that depends on the dentist. “Do they want to make more money on the front end of their career versus building equity value in a business?” asked Mark Harris, DDS, owner of a practice in Riverside, Calif.
What comes next for dental education
The full effect of the new borrowing limits won’t show up for years. Under HR 1, new borrowers can no longer take out Grad PLUS loans as of July 1, 2026, and federal borrowing for professional students is capped at $50,000 a year and $200,000 total, according to the American Dental Education Association.
The Class of 2030 will be the first to complete dental school under the new rules. How that class pays for school, and how many students choose to enroll at all, will show whether the price has outrun the payoff.
“The problem is not that dental school is too hard. The problem is that it is becoming too expensive,” David Nguyen, DMD, CEO of URBN Dental in Houston, said. “When the price of entry becomes high enough, people stop asking, ‘Can I become a great dentist?’ They start asking, ‘Can I survive the debt?’ That is when a profession begins to change.”
