When most kids head off to college, they are still eligible to be covered under their parents’ health insurance plan. However, if that plan doesn’t include dental insurance – which is quite common – you’ll have to search for your own individual dental insurance plan.

But is that really necessary?

Depending on where you live, a routine cleaning can easily cost more than $100 if you don’t have dental insurance – and that doesn’t even include the cost of the x-rays. If you go to the dentist once or twice a year, you’re looking at spending hundreds of dollars just to get the most basic of services! If a serious issue pops up – like a chipped tooth, a filling that falls out, or impacted wisdom teeth that need to be removed – you could wind up spending thousands of dollars in dental care.

Luckily, student dental insurance can help you out!

Even though individual dental insurance is pretty cheap on its own, insurance companies know that college students don’t have a ton of money to spend. That’s why many of them partner with universities to offer student dental insurance. As long as you’re a student at a participating university, you can get an individual dental insurance plan for a discounted rate. Some schools have started offering student dental insurance as part of their annual fees, while others offer it as an option that you can pay extra for.

But does the reduced cost equal reduced coverage?
Absolutely not!

The lower cost is simply smart business on the insurance company’s part. By teaming up with a university, the insurance company is going to get thousands of new customers that they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.In exchange for that boost in business, the insurance companies are willing to offer coverage at reduced rates.

In fact, student dental insurance can provide you with the same benefits as traditional coverage – like a dental PPO plan. With a student dental PPO plan, you’ll get to pick a dentist from a list of acceptable providers. As long as you go to one on the list, you’ll be covered.

One thing to remember, though – since you won’t be a student forever, your student dental insurance plan will not cover you forever. When you graduate, you’ll either have to find a new individual dental insurance plan – or hope that your new job comes with dental care included in its benefits package!