Survey of dental student financial assistance, 2003-04

The Survey of Dental Student Financial Assistance reports data collected by the American Dental Education Association on financial assistance to dental students in the academic year 2003-04. Over 90 percent of students at the fifty-one responding dental schools received financial assistance in the form of loans, grants, scholarships and/or work-study programs, with students receiving an average of 43,191 dollars per year. As tuition and fees rose 21.4 percent over the past two years, financial assistance rose 23.1 percent. Both continue to increase at a rate greater than inflation. The primary source of financial assistance was in the form of loans, accounting for nearly 90 percent of the reported financial assistance. Most of the remaining assistance was in the form of obligated or unobligated grants and scholarships, with an increasing share attributable to grants/scholarships with obligations following graduation. As the price of higher education increases, reliance on financial assistance continues to increase, and students graduate with an increasing amount of debt in real and constant dollars.