It’s no secret that a Doctor of Dental Surgery degree is the most expensive in the country.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the median tuition and fees for dental school in 2024 are $58,580. That exceeds the cost of a degree in all other PhD fields, including medicine, law, and pharmacy.
But the return on investment for a DDS degree is high, so most dental students begin their post-graduate educational journey by taking out student loans. Many of them end up refinancing those loans later down the line, or they at least should consider doing so, says Juno founder Chris Abkarians.
Juno is a company that negotiates loan rates for large groups of students (i.e., collective bargaining for student loans). It began, like many other companies, with a problem and a solution.
When Chris and his co-founder, Nikhil Agarwal, were entering their first year at the Harvard Business School, they joined a large group message on WhatsApp with their classmates; the most recurring topic brought up was student loans.
“We noticed that people were all getting wildly different rates for similar credit profiles,” said Chris. “That told us we could help our classmates if we all worked together.”
So, Chris and Nikhil gathered as many business school students as they could. They reached out to people from Stanford and Wharton and asked them to join a negotiation group. From there, Chris found that by bringing over 500 students who were all asking for loans to the table, lenders would be willing to give out market-low rates.
“It wasn’t a business bet; it was just an experiment to see if we could get something better for our classmates, and it worked really well,” said Chris. After that, once Chris and Nikhil stepped on campus, Juno was born.
As the business model and company grew, solely through word of mouth, more and more students joined Juno’s collective bargaining model, making it stronger and stronger along the way.
As they’ve hit scale, many investors have come on board and seen the value of a true match-rate program for new student loans with Juno. This means if current students find a lower rate than what Juno provided, Juno will be able to match it.
“Our message to students is to just give us a chance and look what we’re able to offer you,” said Chris. “For most people, it will be the best rate you can get, and if it’s not, we have an extremely simple way to make sure we can match and then beat whatever else you’ve been offered with a cashback bonus on top.”
Most of the students Juno has reached thus far are pursuing degrees in business and law, but Chris and Nikhil want to begin helping more students in the healthcare sector. They currently offer free one-on-one consultations with specialists from dentistry, medicine, and pharmacy, along with law and business, who understand the timelines and pressures of financing degrees in each field and can advise on the best way to handle each individual’s student loans.
They also want to spread awareness about refinancing. The company and its founders see it as an underutilized tool that can only help borrowers.
“Most people don’t realize that you can refinance a student loan an unlimited number of times,” said Chris. “So, it’s to your benefit to just check and see if there’s a better rate out there where you don’t even necessarily have to extend the term. You can often keep the term length the same and have lower payments as a result of 90 minutes of your time.”
While opening doors to new careers and opportunities, student loans can be tricky to manage, particularly for dental students, but Juno’s borrowing, refinancing and free consultation services are all available to help students navigate the financial side of their educational journey. That way, students and oral health professionals can focus on taking care of patients.
For new student loans, we have the rate match program. For refinancing existing student loans, there is no rate match program. Instead, dental graduates can get discounts on student loan refinancing through Juno’s free membership program. These discounts mean lower rates than going directly to refinancing companies.
This applies to new student loans only.