Financing A Dental Education

[Ad2223]

Alright, I thought it might be a good idea to start a thread on all the options available to pay for that hefty bill.

 

So going from my limited knowledge, here is a list of options I can think of.

 

1) Line of Credit (RBC/CIBC)

2) Government Student Loan (Fed/Provincial)

3) Armed Forces: Dental Officer Training Plan

4) Is there some sort of MD Financial thing for Dentistry?

 

I am extremely curious to hear what the government student loans are like. I have used them for undergrad and have found them to provide a far from comfortable .

 

I would really like to find someone who is in the Dental Officer Training Plan. I plan on speaking to a recruiter soon to find out as much as I can. I think it could be a great opportunity especially after speaking to a friend of mine in the military. He thought that most dentists sent overseas would be sent to more of a peacekeeping zone ie: Kosovo, Africa, etc. I do know its 6 years of service for four years of school. While in school you are paid a salary of 40-50k in addition to all expenses being covered. Also, once you get licensed as a Dentist, you are promoted to Captain.

 

Please add to this list and let me know the good/bad experiences of each.

[switcheroo]

Alright, I thought it might be a good idea to start a thread on all the options available to pay for that hefty bill.

 

So going from my limited knowledge, here is a list of options I can think of.

 

1) Line of Credit (RBC/CIBC)

2) Government Student Loan (Fed/Provincial)

3) Armed Forces: Dental Officer Training Plan

4) Is there some sort of MD Financial thing for Dentistry?

 

I am extremely curious to hear what the government student loans are like. I have used them for undergrad and have found them to provide a far from comfortable .

 

I would really like to find someone who is in the Dental Officer Training Plan. I plan on speaking to a recruiter soon to find out as much as I can. I think it could be a great opportunity especially after speaking to a friend of mine in the military. He thought that most dentists sent overseas would be sent to more of a peacekeeping zone ie: Kosovo, Africa, etc. I do know its 6 years of service for four years of school. While in school you are paid a salary of 40-50k in addition to all expenses being covered. Also, once you get licensed as a Dentist, you are promoted to Captain.

 

Please add to this list and let me know the good/bad experiences of each.

 

The bank line of credit thing can be good or bad, depending on how things work out after you graduate. My husband graduated dentistry last May, and we took out student lines of credit from Scotiabank to make dental school happen (well, and grad school for me, too!). The downside to bank lines of credit are that 1) you have to pay monthly interest charges even when you're in school. For us, this was ~$700/month for hubby's line of credit for dental school. So you need to budget in advance for this! 2) Your payments will be high once you're out of school, so you need to be reasonably confident you'll find a job (associateship/buying a practice/whatever) that will provide enough income that you can afford to part with your monthly payments and still live comfortably.

 

But on the flip side, we really liked the bank LOCs because they gave us enough money to be happy while in school. We could afford to go on trips and go out for dinner, etc., without worrying too much. That was definitely nice.

 

We also got student loans from the government, because, hey, who doesn't like interest-free loans and some potential bursaries (aka free money)? Downsides were plentiful, but the biggest one was that they wouldn't lend us enough money to even pay hubby's tuition, never mind living expenses. I don't know how it is in other provinces, but here tuition was almost double the maximum student aid amount. Now, the plus side of government student loans was the aforementioned interest-free period while in school, plus all the "bursaries" that cut down our loan amount substantially.

 

In the end, we went with a mix of government and bank student loans, and it seems to have worked out fine. If we had it all to do again, I'd probably do it the same way, though I might hesitate a bit on the government student aid (huge pain in the ass).