Advancing one’s education is a surefire way to open new doors in the workplace and present new opportunities. Dental hygiene, much like nursing, is unique in that graduates of associate and baccalaureate degree programs sit for the same licensing exams. And it is true that if the individual plans to work in the traditional work environment for dentistry—the private dental practice—then there is little differentiation in pay or job assignment between the two degreed dental hygienists. However, if there is a desire to work in a setting other than private practice, the addition of a bachelor’s degree is sure to give the applicant an advantage when it comes to interviewing for the job.

Two national organizations have advocated for the baccalaureate degree as the entry point for dental hygiene practice. The American Dental Hygienists’ Association (ADHA) in its Focus on Advancing the Profession Report calls for implementing the baccalaureate degree as the entry point for practice.^₁ Rationale for ADHA’s support of this initiative is the fact that the vast majority of associate degreed dental hygienists spend at least one year prior to entering a dental hygiene program obtaining prerequisite coursework.

Subsequently, these individuals are graduating with more than 90 credit hours of coursework and yet only an associate degree to show for all their time and effort. The addition of 30 more credit hours would result in a baccalaureate degree. Additionally, the curriculum continues to expand in dental hygiene with the exponential increase of new information in the health sciences.

However, curriculum expansion is not leading to baccalaureate degrees that would better represent the educational preparation of dental hygienists across the country. The American Dental Education Association (ADEA) held its first summit on the future of allied dental education in conjunction with the 39th Annual National Allied Dental Program Director’s Conference in the summer of 2006. Participants explored allied dental education in light of current practice standards and proposed workforce models. There was a consensus that dental hygiene move toward establishing the baccalaureate degree as the entry level degree.²

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Strategies included better partnering between associate and baccalaureate programs to devise ways to make the bachelor’s degree obtainable for all dental hygiene students.

Dental hygiene educators have worked diligently to provide educational opportunities for dental hygienists to advance their degrees. In an attempt to increase the ease with which dental hygienists can advance their education, several dental hygiene programs across the country have developed and implemented distance education programs that provide the opportunity for dental hygienists to obtain a baccalaureate and master’s degree. ADHA provides a listing of online dental hygiene degree completion programs on its Web site (adha.org/careerinfo/dir_education.htm) that span from New York to California. This same site also lists graduate dental hygiene programs that offer dental hygienists the opportunity to advance their education through online coursework, with the majority requiring some onsite visits.

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