Dentist
Also known as: DDS, DMD, General Dentist
Diagnose and treat problems with teeth, gums, and the mouth, from fillings and extractions to complex oral surgery.
Salary Range
The highest-paid specialization or seniority level for dentists.
About 1 in 286 reaches this level
About 161,400 dentists in the US (BLS Employment Projections, SOC 29-1020, 2025); BLS counts ~5,600 oral & maxillofacial surgeons (BLS Employment Projections, SOC 29-1022, 2025). $620K is not what one named role pays: it is the BLS top-10% pay line for oral surgeons (90th percentile $622,640; median $352,220, BLS OEWS, May 2025). We use it because no public source reports what oral-surgery practice owners earn. About 560 oral surgeons are above that line, ~0.35% of dentists. These are wages only: BLS pay data leaves out the ~700 self-employed oral surgeons (BLS Employment Projections, 2025) and the profits owners take from their practices, so owners can earn more. Entry reflects first-year associate pay (~$120K).
Salary data based on 2025 BLS, Glassdoor, and industry reports. Actual compensation varies by location, experience, and employer.
How to Become One
This career typically requires a doctoral/professional degree. Here are the top colleges for it:
Cost to Qualify
Four years of dental school, on top of a bachelor's, costs about $222,000 at a public school in your own state and $398,000 at a private one - and unlike medical school that includes an instrument kit you have to buy, averaging $26,758 and running as high as $59,000. Living costs are not included. ADEA reports the class of 2025 graduated owing an average of $297,800 among those who borrowed, which is lower than private sticker because it nets out scholarships and family money. Cost-to-salaryEntry ratio is 2.5x against our $120,000 entry salary - above the 2.0 line, and real. Two details behind the number: the $26,758 instrument kit is the average among the 60 schools that charge for one - nine of the 69 charge nothing, and the all-school average is $23,268. And this figure is CODA's Total Costs, which includes instruments and instructional materials alongside tuition and mandatory fees, so it is slightly broader than the tuition-and-required-fees basis used for the MD and PharmD.
Sticker price, not what most people pay — scholarships, aid and in-state status all move it. Room and board is shown separately on each college's page.
AI Risk Assessment
AI has reached the dentist's office, but so far it reads X-rays and handles paperwork rather than doing the dentistry. In a June 2026 survey of 589 US dentists by the American Dental Association's Health Policy Institute, 43% said they already use AI for at least one task. The most common use was imaging and diagnostics (23%), where software marks possible cavities and bone loss on X-rays. That is a real part of a dentist's core job, which is why this is not a 1. The evidence also shows the limits. In a 2021 randomized trial in Berlin, dentists using AI caught 81% of cavities instead of 72%, mostly early ones, but they also chose to drill more often. In the ADA survey, fewer than 5% of dentists use AI to recommend treatment, and 83% said they don't plan to. Every finding still needs a dentist to confirm it, and every filling, crown and extraction needs trained hands inside a patient's mouth.
Demand is growing. BLS projects 6% growth for dentists from 2025 to 2035, faster than the average for all jobs, with about 4,800 openings a year. The reasons are an aging population that keeps more of its natural teeth, and more cosmetic work. There is no sign of AI making it harder for new dentists to get hired. This fits the rubric's "2 Low": AI helps, and demand soaks up the time it saves.
What could change this. AI that reads X-rays and writes notes could let each dentist see more patients, and over a decade that could slow hiring. A Boston startup, Perceptive, says its robot did a fully automated dental procedure on a patient in 2024. It is aimed at fillings and crowns, but the company said in January 2025 it was still in human trials. If robots start doing fillings in ordinary practices, or new dentists start struggling to find associate jobs, this score should go up.
Sources
Ratings reflect a 10-year outlook based on 2025-2026 research, weighted toward entry-level impact. Individual outcomes will vary.
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