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Howard Speaks: Keep Living Like a Dental Student by Howard Farran, DDS, MBA, Publisher, Dentaltown Magazine

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by Howard Farran, DDS, MBA, Publisher, Dentaltown Magazine

There is not a billionaire on Earth that doesn’t use debt to benefit business. Even if you started saving money the day you were born and never spent a penny, you’d die before you’d ever see your bank account reach a billion dollars. Billionaires borrow other people’s money, whether through stock or bond offerings or a bank. They buy or build something and then they pay back the loan.

You could have worked a minimum wage job for 40 years, saved money and paid for dental school in cash. But instead most of you took out student loans. You may not be a billionaire, but you used other people’s money to build your career. This is smart debt.

The privilege to borrow

It’s a privilege to be able to borrow money. Thirdworld countries don’t have this option. Debt is leverage, but it’s treated as an emotional decision.

I graduated from dental school in 1987 with $87,000 in student loans. That’s in the $220,000 range today. I paid it back after graduation while working as a dentist because the lowest-paid dentists make $50 an hour. That’s 10 times what I would have made working and saving money at that minimum wage job.

If I hear one more dental school graduate whine about his $300,000 in student loans, I’m going to slap him! Those loans took him from earning $5 an hour to $50+ an hour!

Elevated standard of living

The fact is your personal consumption likely makes your student loan payment look minimal. Dentists often live an elevated standard of living after they graduate and it catches up to them in the long run. You might buy a big house. What’s a monthly payment on a BMW these days? You go out to eat more than you cook at home. On average, people eat out 19 of 30 meals. And you might drop several thousand dollars on a vacation. All these things add up. They add up to a lot more than your monthly student loan payment.

Keep living like a dental student for a few years. Ten years if you can handle it. You don’t need a mansion or a BMW. You can go on a vacation that doesn’t cost $10,000. If you can live affordably while you pay off your student loans, you’ll set yourself up for life.

Not your only debt

Your student loans are just the first of many debts you’ll have. You’ll have the home loan eventually, if you don’t already. And you’ll have future investments for your practice, like buying a building or a CAD/ CAM machine or a CBCT unit. Work with a dental CPA to see if a big purchase like this is a good move. Debt will always make your balance sheet look ugly. But the statement of cash flow is what actually matters. It’s what makes leverage out of debt, and debt is what separates the billionaires.

Dentaltown Magazine
September 2025
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