The Fundamental Financial Problems of Dental Education and Their Impact on Education, Operations, Scholarship, and

Dental educators and practitioners gener-ally agree that serious financial problems are challenging dental schools. Evidence includes declining public support, large increases in tuition, mounting student debt, and difficulties recruiting and retaining clinical faculty. Here, we examine the fundamental financial problems of dental education and set the stage for the next two presentations, which address possible solutions. Our assumptions include the following: • Dental students require scientific and clinical education at the same academic level as medical students. • Most dental schools need to be in research uni-versities where full-time clinical faculty make scholarly contributions similar to that of tenure-track faculty in other university disciplines