After TCNJ? Esp. for dental?

sgopal2
Fri, 13 Jan 2017 16:34:28 +0000

I agree with all of the great advice you’ve been given here. Don’t fall into the prestige trap and be saddled with debt for most of your adult life. No one gives a hoot about where their dentist went to school.

Let’s do some simple math:

$500K debt paid back over 20 year amortization (4%)
*Would cost roughly $3000 per month x 20 years
*Assuming you could devote 20% of your take home pay for loans
*You’d need a yearly salary of over **$200,000 **to pay this back

This doesn’t include other costs you will likely incur over your adult life:
auto loan
mortgage
parental leave/illness
kids
etc

Given that the average dentist salary in the northeast is around $175K do you really want to devote this much of your life paying back student loans?

Alternatively if you go to TCNJ/state dental then your payback looks like:

*$240K debt over 20 years (4%)
*Would cost $1444 per month x 20 years
*Salary needed to cover (20%) would be $86K