- Your main contact for information on paying for dental school is your Financial Aid Office (FAO), and some dental schools have their own standalone FAO while others have all the financial aid for their dental students handled in a main campus FAO.
- One of the most important numbers you should know about paying for dental school is the monthly living allowance that is part of your overall cost of attendance (COA), which is also called the financial aid budget.
- Annual COA changes each year and while some of the expenses you have no control over, like tuition and fees, there are others, like living expenses, transportation and similar, that you do have some control over.
- You can borrow up to the full COA with two federal loans—direct unsubsidized and direct PLUS—regardless of the COA at your dental school—but just because you can borrow up to the full COA doesn’t mean you have to.
- If you find out you borrowed more than you need, you can work with your financial aid office to send money back, and if you do that within the first 120 days you are not charged any interest or fees on the amount you are sending back.
- Most dental school loans, including federal direct unsub and direct PLUS, accrue (build up) interest while you are in school.
- Federal loans have far more flexibility in repayment than private loans.
- International students may be able to borrow private loans if they can get a creditworthy cosigner who is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
- Service-commitment programs like the Armed Forces and National Health Service Corps are great ways to reduce or eliminate student loan debt.
- Dental school graduates have a great reputation for repaying their student loans.
Get important information on financing your dental education that is objective, timely and comprehensive on the Money Matters section of adea.org/GoDental.
About Paul Garrard, M.B.A.:
Paul S. Garrard, M.B.A.
Founder and President
PGPresents, LLC
Independent Student Loan Consulting
ADEA Senior Advisor for Student Financial Services
With more than 35 years of experience in higher education and student financial aid, Paul Garrard is one of the most well-known and in-demand educational debt management experts in the nation, especially in the health professions communities. Mr. Garrard currently serves as a consultant for the American Dental Education Association (ADEA) as their Senior Advisor for Student Financial Services.
He has extensive experience in the nonprofit and for-profit sectors of higher education. In 2008, he started his own consulting firm, PGPresents, LLC, designed to help promote responsible borrowing and responsible repayment.
His specialty is helping health professions graduates, including dental school graduates, manage their student loan portfolios by helping them develop repayment strategies that meet their career and financial goals. He also uses this expertise through ADEA to help inform incoming dental students about borrowing responsibly.
He is a nationally known speaker on financing a dental education and is a regular speaker at the ADEA GoDental Recruitment Event held prior to the ADEA Annual Session & Exhibition.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Samford University and an M.B.A. from the University of Georgia. Mr. Garrard works out of his home in Shepherdstown, WV.