Fast Cars, Big Boats and Student Loans?

So you have made the decision to leave the military to pursue dental school you or are considering the military to help offset the extradorinaiy high cost of dental school. Dental school is the most expensive professional school outweighing Medical for a number of reasons. (read more here) By choosing the right school, taking advantage of veterans benefits offered by the school, applying for HPSP/HSPC/Post-911 GI/VOC Rehab benefits you can significantly decrease the high cost of dental school.

$285,184 Average Student Debt for Dental Student in 2018

At both of my interviews they had the schools finance manager get up in front of us and present the cots of the school. Basically he said “Yeah its gonna be around $300-$400K at the end of the day.” Everybody laughed but even instate students with lower annual tuition cost have to account for high living expenses, tuition, lab fees etc.

There are basically 3 types of students (financially speaking) at dental school:

$tudent #1: Parents are going to pay for school/living/BMW and finance is not a concern

$tudent #2: Student loans are the way to go for them. Will graduate with around 2-500K in debt.

$tudent #3: Military Scholarship awardees, Post 9-11 GI Bill, VOC Rehab, Indian Health Services etc. - Opportunity to graduate with ZERO debt.

Which student would you like to be? Of course $udent #1! Get through school the old fashioned way, have your parents pay for it. As nice as that would be maybe your dad is a degenerate gambler and loves to bet on the Jets and gambled away your college savings or you have some military benefits laying around and want to use them. Either way there are various way to pay for dental and other professional health schools with military benefits. Below I will break down the different methods of using the benefits you have earned to help pay for dental school.

HPSP- Health Professional Scholarship Program

The Army, Navy and Air Force all offer a Health Professional Scholarship Program for students entering dental school. School will be fully funded for 2, 3 or 4 years depending on what level of scholarship you receive. The commitment following dental school graduation, you will serve 1 year in the military for every year of scholarship you were awarded. This is an incredible opportunity for a student that has NOT PREVIOUSLY served. The target audience for this scholarship is a student entering dental school that wants to serve and have school funded. All of our HPSP scholarship awardees in my class are “traditional” students straight out of undergrad. About 7/100 students are on the HPSP scholarship.

Not interested in dentistry? Thats ok, the HPSP program covers Medical/Osteopathy, Dental, Veterinarian, Qualifying Specialty Nurse, Counseling/Clinical Psychology and Optometry.

Benefits:

Full tuition (up to 4 years, depending on specialty)
Books, equipment, other fees
$2,300+ monthly stipend
$20,000 sign-on bonus
Officer's pay during school breaks
Monthly allowance for food and housing
Salary increases with promotions, time in service and cost-of-living adjustments

HSCP- Health Services Collegiate Program

Have you served on active duty and want to continue to do so while in dental school? This program, while not as common as the HPSP program is only offered through the Navy. This is how the program works: If you are currently serving as an officer in one of the armed forces, you can apply for this scholarship, if granted you will serve and receive active duty service and years during dental school. You are paid active duty salary and BAH, however you are typically reduced to E6/7 during school. This program DOES NOT pay your tuition. The ideal combination for this scholarship is somebody who has served adequate time to earn the Post 9-11 GI bill for dental school and wants to potentially retire out of the Navy.

Example: Navy O3 applies for HSCP after 8 years of service. Officer has most likely earned 100% Post 9-11 GI bill, admitted to a state school (9-11 Bill should cover most if not all of cost). O3 is reduced to E6/7 depending on time in service, for years 8 through 12 of service (4 years of dental school). Following dental school, promoted back to O3/4, pays back his time in service and can retire at 20 years. (this is how I understood the program, remember what I said on the first page….this is my experience and I never guaranteed anything to be 100% correct)

If you are interested in this, give you local Navy recruiter a call. You do NOT have to be in the Navy to get this, you can crossover from the Army and Air Force.

Post 9-11 GI Bill

The post 9-11 GI Bill for me was an incredible perk and to be honest I didn’t know it existed until a few years into my service. This is the greatest military education benefit and can pay for 100% of dental/med/PA school. If you served in the military for at least 90 days, there is a good chance that you have at least 40% GI Bill benefits.

Benefits:

Tuition and fees. If you qualify for the maximum benefit, we’ll cover the full cost of public, in-state tuition and fees. We cap the rates for private and foreign schools, and update those rates each year.
View current rates
Money for housing (if you’re in school more than half time). BAH rate is E5 with dependents. See your Rates here
Money for books and supplies. You can receive up to $1,000 per school year.
Money to help you move from a rural area to go to school.

Let me break this down for you, there is some KEY phrasing in here.

Tuition: “full cost of public, in state tuition” otherwise the max they will cover per year is $23,671.94. So for example if you attend a State/Public school but you are out of state resident, the max they may pay is $23k even though your tuition is $50-$70K a year. I mentioned this in the “choosing your school” section but as you are applying, make sure you are asking the school if they have in a program that allows veterans to apply and receive instate tuition. My school offered it to me during the application process, and once I submitted it I was considered an in state student. So despite the fact that I have never set foot in the state I am currently attending school in, the university considers me a resident, charges me in state tuition and therefore the Post 9-11 GI bill covers 100% tuition and fees. Thats how you graduate debt free.

BAH: E5 with dependents is more than adequate to provide housing for you and your family during school. This is an incredible perk and I am very thankful for the funding. Pretty straight forward, follow the link above to see your rate. Like always THERE IS A CATCH! The Post 9-11 GI Bill will only pay you BAH for the DAYS YOU ARE IN SCHOOL. This has not been a huge issue for me but as an example, if you have long breaks between semesters, your BAH will reflect the days that you did not go to school. So I have found a safe bet of assuming I will get about 80% of my allocated BAH every month.

Money for Books and Supplies: Extra $1k at the beginning of each school year to use on whatever you want.

Vocational Rehabilitation

Ohhhhhh baby where do I start on this one. This is an incredible benefit that the VA offers veterans with service related disabilities. This program is one of the more elusive benefits out there. Bottom line, this has a lot of the same benefits of the Post 9-11 GI Bill, same BAH etc. However, this is primarily an employment program aimed to get disabled veterans the training necessary to get back into the workforce. In order to be found entitled and awarded the program you have to prove that the education is needed for your to get employment. Again, this is a very tricky program and most people are denied and or just give up because the VA is difficult to deal with. There is intentionally a lack of published information on this program to give VA counselors the upper hand when Vets apply. The Best resource I have found is “The Voc Rehab Survival Guide” by Benjamin Krause. This guy went from being disabled through law school and now dedicates a portion of his practice to helping vets get their entitled Voc Rehab benefits. There is way to much to discuss here, it is important to know that the program is out there and if you qualify, I urge you to buy Ben’s book before talking to a counselor.

If you have specific questions regarding this please don’t hesitate to reach out. It is an intentionally confusing process, requires aggressive follow-up but can be a great benefit if you qualify.