Healthcare
Dental Hygienist
Dental hygienists clean teeth, take X-rays, and educate patients on oral health. It offers strong pay and flexibility for a relatively short training path.
Median salary
$81,000
Typical range
$60k – $105k
Job outlook
+9% (faster than average)
AI exposure
Plan a path to Dental Hygienist
Education
Typical entry: Associate degree
Associate degree in dental hygiene plus licensure.
Plan my path to this →Typical progression
Junior Dental Hygienist
Entry / Junior
$60,000
~2 yrs to advance
Dental Hygienist
Established
$81,000
~3 yrs to advance
Senior Dental Hygienist
Senior
$93,000
Key skills
Manual dexterityPatient educationAttention to detail
A typical day
- •Clean and examine teeth
- •Take X-rays
- •Educate patients
Fields of study
Dental Hygiene · Health Sciences
Top colleges for Healthcare
Explore all- Johns Hopkins University7% admit · $93,000 grad pay
- Harvard University4% admit · $119,000 grad pay
- University of Michigan18% admit · $87,000 grad pay
- Duke University6% admit · $105,000 grad pay
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill19% admit · $73,000 grad pay
Reputation-based selection; stats shown are outcome data per school.
Related careers
Other careers from this field of study
Mapped by field-of-study code (Dental Hygiene, Health Sciences), not by job-title guessing.