Graduates earn a median $192,188 two years after finishing, more than 99% of master's majors. Measured across 65 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.
Yes, on the money — this is one of the best-paying majors at this level in the country.
| # | University | 1 yr out | 2 yrs out | 3 yrs out | Graduates/yr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Virginia Commonwealth University cost & debt at this university → | not published | $234,763 | $225,432 | 18 |
| 2 | Indiana University-Indianapolis | $201,325 | $223,678 | $212,436 | 26 |
| 3 | University of Washington-Seattle Campus | $189,764 | $218,927 | $206,965 | 23 |
| 4 | University of Illinois Chicago cost & debt at this university → | not published | $208,572 | not published | 30 |
| 5 | The University of Tennessee Health Science Center | not published | $198,793 | $223,224 | 13 |
| 6 | University of California-San Francisco | not published | $198,793 | not published | 14 |
| 7 | Marquette University cost & debt at this university → | not published | $194,665 | not published | 14 |
| 8 | Columbia University in the City of New York | not published | $192,188 | not published | 10 |
| 9 | The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston | not published | $190,536 | not published | 26 |
| 10 | University of Detroit Mercy cost & debt at this university → | not published | $190,536 | not published | 12 |
| 11 | University of Florida cost & debt at this university → | $236,746 | $182,280 | $190,105 | 14 |
| 12 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor cost & debt at this university → | $185,139 | $178,741 | $197,723 | 35 |
It is the median of what real graduates of this exact major earned, taken from tax records two years after they completed. It is not a starting salary, not an average of job adverts, and not a projection. The median master's major in this dataset reports $52,837, so Advanced & Graduate Dentistry sits above the middle by $139,351.
Two years is early in a career. Fields with long training pipelines — medicine, law, research — look weaker at this point than they will at ten, while trades and applied technical fields peak sooner. Read a low figure in a long-pipeline subject as "slow start", not "bad degree".
There is no debt figure here on purpose. The Department of Education publishes earnings by field of study but not borrowing, so nobody can honestly tell you the debt of a specific major. Debt is published per institution — that is where our university cost pages carry it.
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Classified by the Department of Education as Advanced/Graduate Dentistry and Oral Sciences (CIP 5105). Source: US Department of Education College Scorecard, field-of-study earnings (median earnings of graduates who received federal financial aid, measured 1–3 years after completion). Figures are per major and credential level, pooled across US programmes. Information only, not financial advice.