Roseman University dental school shortens curriculum to three years

The College of Dental Medicine at Roseman University of Health Sciences in South Jordan, Utah, becomes the second program in the country to transition its dental degree program from a four-year curriculum to three.

The nonprofit, private university announced Sept. 8 it received formal approval from the Commission on Dental Accreditation to transition to a shortened program, beginning with the 2022-23 academic year.

The goal of the change was to capitalize on newly developed education models and to help reduce the cost of dental education and student debt, said Frank Licari, D.D.S., dean of the Roseman University College of Dental Medicine, in a news release.
  
“We have worked diligently over the past several years to develop and foster a team-based clinical education model … to create curricular efficiencies that allow students to obtain more classroom and clinical contact hours in less time,” said Dr. Licari.
  
Dr. Licari said the school will not apply a full four years worth of tuition over three years in the new model.

“Roseman’s students will save about $130,000 in tuition and living expenses but will also benefit from an extra year of earning potential by graduating and entering the dental profession one year sooner,” he said.

In addition to reducing the length of its dental degree program, the college of dental medicine also received approval from CODA to increase its new class size from 100 admitted per academic year to 120 in the 2023-24 academic year and up to 136 in 2024-25. Once the program is fully transitioned to three years in 2026-27, the dental school will have a total program enrollment of 408 students.

The first dental school with a three-year curriculum was the University of the Pacific Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry in San Francisco.