What the IPEDS & College Scorecard Data Shows for Dentistry
Dentistry is tracked across 8 U.S. postsecondary institutions in the College Scorecard field-of-study file, which links CIP code classifications from IPEDS to Treasury earnings records. This profile covers the doctoral credential level specifically, because the Department of Education reports program-level outcomes separately for associate, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral awards. The CIP (Classification of Instructional Programs) taxonomy lets analysts roll up specialties into broader families, which is why earnings medians across schools can be compared on a common basis.
Across all reporting institutions, the mean of school-level medians is $151,761, calculated from 7 schools with published earnings data. The earnings distribution stretches from $112,488 at the low end to $177,433 at the top, with a 25th-75th percentile band between $129,898 and $174,977 around a median of $156,942. The top-reporting institution in this program is Meharry Medical College at $177,433. These numbers reflect earnings measured roughly a year after completion, using Social Security Administration tax records linked to federal financial aid applicants.
Variation across schools matters more than a single national figure. Completers counts reported per school indicate how many graduates’ earnings feed the median, which means small programs produce more volatile numbers. Median debt at the program level, when paired with earnings, yields a debt-to-earnings ratio that is the College Scorecard’s standard affordability signal — ratios under 1.0 indicate earnings exceed cumulative debt. Use the school-by-school table to spot institutions where Dentistry graduates out-earn peers at comparable cost, and to surface gainful-employment patterns that only become visible at the CIP-code level.
University of Pennsylvania accounts for 100.0% of all Dentistry doctoral credential graduates
That concentration — well above the 5% national median for largest-entity share — means Dentistry-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the dominant entity. That school produced 2 graduates in the most recent cohort, anchoring a meaningful slice of national supply for this field. When one entity dominates a region's footprint, its programmatic and budget decisions effectively set policy for a majority of the affected population.
Dentistry doctoral credential median debt varies 2.6× across entities
Dentistry doctoral credential median debt ranges from $175,333 (lowest) to $459,525 (highest), a spread of $284,192. That spread reflects typical institutional cost differences — public in-state, public out-of-state, and private school financing models produce predictable spreads. Median debt counts only those students who borrowed federal loans — students who paid out-of-pocket or received institutional grants are excluded from the borrower median, which can flatter low-debt schools.
Dentistry debt-to-earnings ratio is 2.28 — high (typically associated with graduates carry debt that exceeds annual earnings, a signal of debt stress — ratios above 1.5 trigger gainful-employment scrutiny under federal regulation)
debt-to-earnings ratio is the simplest comparative metric but it does not capture the full picture: this ratio uses federal loan principal, not all education debt — private loans, parent PLUS loans not in the borrower’s name, and institutional debt are excluded Higher values may reflect larger urban scale or recent resource constraints that have widened the gap.
Dentistry operates only 8 institutions offer this program — among the most consolidated governance structures in the country
Most Dentistry institutions offer this program are specialty-program scarcity that concentrates national supply in a small set of institutions — graduates often command stronger employer attention because the talent pool is structurally narrower. Consolidation produces narrower variance because resources pool across larger populations, but it can also mask intra-institutions offer this program inequities — sub-institutions offer this program differences within a single institutions offer this program are not visible at this aggregation level. Consolidated systems typically rely more heavily on top-down funding formulas than on local revenue variability.
Earnings data comes from the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard Field of Study file. Median earnings represent graduates who received federal financial aid, drawn from U.S. Treasury tax records linked to federal student aid applicants. Completers count and debt figures reflect program-level data reported through IPEDS. Data is updated annually.