As exciting as going to university may be, it can be expensive — more so for those studying medicine and dentistry.
Enrolment in dental school has never been higher. During the 2025–26 academic year, 28,925 students were enrolled in predoctoral dental education programmes across the US — the highest level ever recorded, up from 24,117 a decade earlier, according to the American Dental Association.
The price of that ambition, however, has climbed just as steeply. The average first-year cost at public dental programmes reached US$46,845 for residents and US$79,168 for non-residents in 2025–26, while private dental schools averaged US$90,090 for the first year alone.
With costs at those levels, debt has become the default. In the class of 2025, 82% of graduates with dental school debt used federal direct unsubsidised loans to fund their education — a higher rate than in 2021 — and, on average, students covered 65% of their total dental education costs through debt, according to ADEA’s Dentists of Tomorrow 2025 report.