What New Dentists Need to Know About Student Loans in 2025

As you complete dental school or wrap up your residency, student loan repayment is probably at the front of your mind. For many new dentists, $500,000 balances are the norm — and the repayment decisions you make in your first few months after graduation can have long-lasting financial impact.

As you search for a job, relocate, and begin building your financial foundation, making monthly student loan payments of $5,000 to $8,000 is probably unrealistic — and may not even be possible. If that’s your situation, enrolling in an income-driven repayment (IDR) plan could be a smart way to reduce your payments while maintaining financial flexibility.

Unfortunately, the repayment landscape in 2025 is more volatile than ever. The Biden administration's new SAVE plan — which offered the lowest payments and best interest subsidies — has been frozen by court order. Meanwhile, Congress is debating legislation that could radically reshape or eliminate income-driven repayment (IDR) and Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) for future borrowers.

In this environment, new dentists must be both strategic and flexible. Here's what you need to know.

Step 1: Understand Your Repayment Timeline

• Most federal loans (Unsubsidized, Grad PLUS) enter repayment 6 months after you graduate dental school.
• If you're in a residency or fellowship, you may be eligible for deferment or forbearance — but this pauses progress toward forgiveness and allows interest to accumulate.
• Best practice: Consider entering repayment as early as possible on an IDR plan to lock in low payments and start earning qualifying time toward forgiveness (especially PSLF).

Step 2: Review Your IDR Options – Limited but Evolving

As of mid-2025, here are the available repayment plans for most new graduates:

If you didn’t previously enroll in SAVE or PAYE (Mostly relevant to residents), your main option today is IBR, which is less generous than SAVE and may lead to faster interest growth if your income is low relative to your debt.

Step 3: Plan for Change

• The student loan policy landscape is in flux:
• Congressional proposals aim to eliminate most IDR forgiveness, restrict PSLF eligibility, and restructure repayment around a 10-year model.
• The SAVE plan, launched in 2023 (and its precursor RePAYE), has been frozen by courts, and its future is unclear.
• Legal challenges are expected regardless of what passes, meaning changes may take months (or years) to resolve fully.

What You Should Do Now:

• If you’ve recently graduated from Dental school, apply for an IDR plan at least a few months before your 6 month grace period ends (Probably around Sept/Oct).
• Track PSLF-qualifying employment, if you’ll be working for a nonprofit or government entity.
• Stay alert for changes, and be prepared to re-certify or switch plans when the legal dust settles.

Final Thought for New Dentists

This is one of the most unstable moments in federal student loan policy in the last 20 years. But your best bet is still to:

• Get on an IDR plan ASAP
• Make qualifying payments if PSLF is in your future
• Avoid forbearance unless absolutely necessary, and
• Stay in the loop — what’s true in June 2025 may not be true by year-end.

Once your financial situation has stabilized and you have a clearer picture of your monthly income and expenses, it’s time to develop a strategy for managing your student loans. That strategy might include enrolling in an income-driven repayment (IDR) plan — or it might not. It’s hard to know what makes the most sense until your income and lifestyle are more predictable. In the meantime, I recommend avoiding any irreversible decisions, such as refinancing your federal loans, and preserving as much flexibility as possible.