Expect whiter teeth on campus: Taft College welcomes new bachelor's degree dental program

Jun. 24—Come next fall, dental students at Taft College will have the opportunity to enroll in the school's new bachelor program for dental hygiene administration.

The new program, which is more a degree completion program that expands the school's existing associate program, is fully online and came at the request of faculty who felt it was an obvious move.

"By the time students leave an associate's (degree) program in dental hygiene, they're only 20 to 30 credits short of a bachelor's degree," said Vickie Kimbrough, director of Taft College's dental hygiene program. "They earn so many credits between prerequisite classes and the dental hygiene program — they're just so close to the bachelor's degree ... so it really makes sense to have the program as a bachelor's degree option."

Taft College celebrated approval of a new bachelor's degree program that faculty say will be a game-changer for dentistry students. Currently, an average of 40 students enter the associate degree program each fall. Educators are still looking at how many students will be allowed into the new program.

"Once it starts to get offered, and rumors fly, essentially, then the students who do not have a bachelor's degree become extremely interested," Kimbrough said.

In an age where the looming threat of AI raises questions about future career opportunities, rest assured: Your dentist's office is probably safe. According to Kimbrough, an average graduate from the school's two-year program makes decent money — a median of $45 to $55 per hour, or about $93,000 yearly.

But for dental students interested in working outside the office, few options exist for those without a bachelor's degree.

"So, for anything beyond working in a dental office, pretty much you'll need a bachelor's degree or higher," Kimbrough said. "There's corporate dental companies — Colgate, Oral B, supply sales, pharmaceuticals, things that are going to require a bachelor's degree."

Taft College, which regularly serves more than 3,500 students, now has a total of three bachelor's degree programs. Its new dental hygiene program was one of seven approved by the California Community Colleges system, which oversees 73 districts and 116 colleges that enroll 1.8 million students per year.

"Every time I go to a dentist office or talk to someone, there's always one of our students working there, if not more," said Sheri Horn-Bunk, executive director of institutional advancement and the Taft College Foundation. "We have built a lot of workforce through this to support dentists in Bakersfield and in Kern County."

The state community college system has, since 2014, approved a variety of bachelor's programs each year, as long as they meet certain requirements and don't overlap with preexisting programs within the California State University system.

The intention is to put more diplomas in more hands, at a cheaper price, through a school that bypasses the nerve-racking college admissions process. Taft College's associate degree hygiene program costs an average of about $13,000 for the two years, though prices are expected to rise for the bachelor's program — from $46 per course unit to $132.

"Quality, affordable and accessible California community college baccalaureate degree programs advance economic and social mobility for individuals and families while meeting the needs of business and industry in our state," said Larry Galizio, president and CEO of the Community College League of California.

The achievement of bringing home a new program, Horn-Bunk said, coincides with another: The school is about to celebrate the 30th year of its dental hygiene associate degree program.

"Thirty years of producing dental students, so there's a lot of them out there," Horn-Bunk said.

The school hopes to have a new vocational center on campus soon to replace the pre-fab modular buildings in use since 1993.

"It'll allow us to design the clinic to look more like dental offices so the students get a lot more used to working in a true dental office environment," Kimbrough said.

The expected completion of the center is undetermined, said Brock McMurray, the college's interim president, who added that it's "next up" on the campus's master plan, with an estimated price tag of $30 million. So, for now, the college plans to celebrate the program's 30-year-run in September, with good-old gambling.

"We are going to gamble it up," Horn-Bunk said, laughing. "But really it's going to be a beautiful night where we bring the local dentist society together to Bakersfield, and it's going to be a lot of fun."