As we mentioned in two prior posts, with the recent changes to borrowing and repayment, we anticipate that many incoming dental students will need to borrow private loans to pay for dental school. In our last post, we listed a series of questions when choosing a lender for your private loans. However, these focused on the terms and conditions of the loans themselves.
We have three more important questions you should ask when thinking about and applying for private loans for dental school:
Question 1: Does the financial aid office at your school have a Preferred Lender List?
- Your aid office may have information about individual lenders with regard to their application process, reputation in the lending community, and overall knowledge of dental school students. We suggest you start there before shopping for a private lender.
- It may also know whether particular lenders sell their loans to another lending institution, as this can make tracking your loans challenging (meaning you borrowed from one lender and now owe another one).
Question 2: How often does the lender of the private loan you borrow check your credit?
- Remember, private loans are based on your credit (and that of your creditworthy cosigner, if you get a cosigner). It is not unusual for private lenders to run credit checks on borrowers every six months, as well as any time you apply for a new loan.
- This common occurence is why it is imperative for you to keep your credit as clean as possible by not being late on payments for rent, credit cards and other obligations. It will also be important to pay down any outstanding credit card balances before you start dental school, as this will help to maintain a good credit score. Note thatcredit card expenses cannot be added to your cost of attendance (financial aid budget) at your school
Question 3: What is the maxmium amount the private lender will be willing to lend you during dental school?
- This is extremely important because the last thing you want is to need more private loan funding later in dental school only to be told that you have hit the maximum amount available.
- You should also check to see if any cumulative maximums they reference include other borrowing, such as federal loans.
We hope this information helps if private student loans should be part of your approach to paying for dental school.
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.