Some students may have started another year of school recently while others may be taking a planned break for various reasons. A Gap Year is a span of time between the end of undergraduate education and the beginning of dental school or a dental hygiene program. It can be longer than a year, depending on your circumstances. 

When taking a gap year, there are important steps every student should take if they anticipate needing financial aid for dental school and dental hygiene programs or any other graduate degree program following their gap year. Make sure you have a clear vision of what you want to accomplish during this time away from school and plan wisely because a year (or two) can fly by.  

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You may have read a lot, seen a lot and heard a lot about paying for dental school, but did you know that if you find out you have borrowed more than you need, you can work with your Financial Aid Office to send money back, and that if you do that within the first 120 days, you are not charged any interest or fees on the amount you are sending back?

Paul Garrard, national student loan expert and ADEA Senior Advisor for Student Financial Services, clues us in on ten financing details you may not have been aware of. 

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On June 30, 2023,  the Supreme Court ruled against the Biden administration’s Student Debt Relief Plan, which would have provided $10,000 to $20,000 student loan debt relief for qualified borrowers.

What does this mean for you?

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Are you currently researching financing options and/or thinking about how to pay for dental school? Paul Garrard, national student loan expert and ADEA Senior Advisor for Student Financial Services, has suggestions for some important questions you should ask to help ensure you have access to the best financial aid possible. These considerations will help you know how to borrow responsibly if you have to take out student loans and that you have access to trusted resources to help prepare you to repay your loans responsibly after you graduate. ... See More

President Biden, Vice President Harris and the Department of Education recently announced their Student Debt Relief Plan to help borrowers better manage their student loans and transition back into repayment following the pandemic.

Read on as Paul Garrard, national student loan expert and ADEA Senior Advisor for Student Financial Services, breaks down the plan’s three parts.

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Interest rates on federal student loans are fixed, but they change on new loans disbursed on or after July 1 of any given year. This simply means, for example, that if you borrow four direct unsubsidized loans for each year of dental school, you will graduate with four loans, each of which has a different, but fixed, interest rate.

The interest rates on new federal loans disbursed on or after July 1, 2022, were just announced! 

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No doubt you’ve heard about the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program where the federal government forgives your student loan debt after you work in the nonprofit sector for 10 years. One of the questions we often get is whether payments made during gap years prior to dental school can help a borrower qualify for PSLF. 

Read on as Paul Garrard, national student loan expert and ADEA Senior Advisor for Student Financial Services, breaks down the ins and out of PSLF.

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“Students enrolled in any degree program usually have many questions about financial aid, especially student loans,” says Paul Garrard, national student loan expert and ADEA Senior Advisor for Student Financial Services. “Over the years, I’ve received questions pertaining to whether there could be or will be any changes to the degree programs and if those changes will impact their finances—either during school or later when they are repaying any student loan amounts they may have borrowed.” 

Keep reading to see what tips Garrard has for those considering how to pay for their dental hygiene education.

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“As an applicant to or a student enrolled in a dental education program, you will often hear ‘borrow responsibly and never borrow more than you need,’” says Gardner Key, Director of Financial Aid at Harvard School of Dental Medicine. 

“Why? Because being a responsible borrower means that when you become a dentist, you are typically not stressed about what you borrowed for dental school because you feel confident you can responsibly repay your loans. While finances are an important part of your decision about which dental school to attend, it is important to remember they are only one part of this decision.”

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Did you know the interest rate on federal direct loans is now 0%? That’s right, and that’s only one of several ways the U.S. government is helping student loan borrowers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Paul Garrard, national student loan expert and ADEA Senior Advisor for Student Financial Services, provides updates and a quick breakdown of what options are currently available for student borrowers.

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