The Most Expensive Dental Schools in the US

At the top of the price scale, dental school stops looking like education and starts looking like a mortgage on a house you never get to live in. The most expensive school in our 64-school dataset — Midwestern University College of Dental Medicine-Illinois — ran about $558,342 for four years based on cost-of-attendance data from around 2021–2022, and roughly $710,942 once student-loan interest is counted. The cheapest school in the same dataset totaled $277,480. That is a $281,000 spread for the same degree — and which side of it you land on is decided, in large part, before you ever set foot in a clinic.

Below are the 15 priciest dental schools in the country, what pushes their costs so high, and the single most important lever you control on that number: your DAT score.

On these figures: the dollar amounts come from published cost-of-attendance data from roughly 2021–2022, and most reflect out-of-state or private sticker rates. Tuition and living costs rise about 3–5% a year, so current 2026 totals are likely 15–20% higher — our inflation-adjusted estimates (the ~1.17× column) reflect that. Treat every number here as a planning estimate, confirm current figures directly with each school, and cross-check at ada.org.

The 15 most expensive dental schools

Ranked by four-year cost of attendance in the source data (highest first). The final column is the true cost once loan interest that accrues during school is folded in.

For context, the median school in our dataset ran $429,735 for four years, or about $547,249 with interest. Every school on this list sits well above that — and the top of it clears $700,000 in true cost.

Why these schools cost so much

Three patterns drive almost every school on this list:

• Private, tuition-dependent programs. Schools like the two Midwestern campuses, NYU, A.T. Still Arizona, Roseman, Penn, and Dugoni have no state subsidy and one sticker price for everyone. That single rate tends to be steep — Midwestern-Illinois posted tuition near $100,000–$103,000 every year.
• Out-of-state public sticker rates. Maryland, Washington, UNLV, Illinois-Chicago, Ohio State, Minnesota, Nebraska, and MUSC appear here at their out-of-state figures. In-state residents at these same schools often pay dramatically less — sometimes six figures less over four years.
• High cost-of-living cities. Seattle, New York, San Francisco, and Las Vegas layer expensive housing on top of tuition. UNLV's published living costs alone ran over $42,000 in some years — that is rent and groceries, before a dollar of tuition.

The takeaway: an expensive school is not automatically a better school. Much of what you would pay at the top of this list is a function of residency status and zip code, not education quality.

The number nobody advertises: cost with interest

Sticker cost of attendance is not what you repay. Most dental students finance with federal Direct and Grad PLUS loans that accrue interest while you are still in school — for four years, before a single payment is due. On the priciest schools, that interest gap is enormous:

• Midwestern-Illinois: sticker $558,342 → $710,942 with interest (a ~$153,000 gap).
• NYU: $517,812 → $658,132.
• University of Washington: $518,749 → $661,221.

On these schools the interest alone can exceed the entire four-year sticker at cheaper programs. It is the quietest, largest line item in dental education — and it compounds every advantage of choosing a lower-cost seat.

What a weak application actually costs you

Here is the connection most pre-dental students miss: the price you pay is set by which schools will admit and fund you, and that set is decided by your application — above all, your DAT score.

A borderline score leaves you taking whatever seat you can get, which is often an out-of-state or private one at the top of this list. A strong score does the opposite: it opens your in-state public school, unlocks merit scholarships, and gives you the leverage to compare offers instead of accepting the only one. Moving from a $700,000-true-cost seat to a $340,000 in-state seat is not a fantasy — it is the difference between two acceptances, and the swing is easily $100,000 to $280,000 over four years.

The exam that unlocks that difference costs a few hundred dollars. That is the whole premise of DATPractice: the DAT is the cheapest lever on the most expensive purchase of your life. No other decision in your pre-dental years returns six figures for a few hundred dollars and a few months of focused prep.

How to avoid the top of this list

• Maximize your DAT first. It is the single biggest input to where you get in and what it costs. Do it before you ever apply.
• Prioritize your in-state public school. Several schools on this list are cheap for residents and brutal for everyone else — residency is the largest discount available.
• Compare total cost with interest, not sticker tuition, when you weigh acceptances. A $50,000 sticker difference can be $70,000+ after interest.
• Chase merit aid. A strong DAT and GPA make you the applicant schools compete for with scholarship dollars.
• Apply early through ADEA AADSAS — later applicants fight for fewer seats and less aid.

See our cheapest dental schools list for the other end of this spectrum, and the full 64-school cost ranking for where every school falls.