Wisconsin technical college leaders say new state funding will help meet the high demand for new dental professionals.
The state Legislature's Consolidated Finance Committee announced just under $20 million in state funding at its Tuesday meeting. The funding was allocated for grants to oral health care workers through a bipartisan bill passed by the state Legislature in January.
This funding is in response to a shortage of dental health care workers in Wisconsin. Federal data from January shows 34 of the state's 72 counties have a shortage of dental health professionals, according to the Legislative Fiscal Service.
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This shortage is what led Lakeshore Technical College in Manitowoc County to establish a new dental hygienist program. Starting in 2026, the program will target 10 students each year.
Meredith Sauer, Lakeshore University's vice president for instruction, said the university began planning a hygienist program last fall as a way to “be part of the solution” to the worker shortage.
“We started evaluating what those costs were and figuring out how to make that happen as a university ready to move forward,” she said. “So this was a really great opportunity for us.”
Sauer said the $1.2 million state grant will go towards renovating the university's dental clinic, including updating outdated equipment and adding dental chairs to accommodate more students. He said the expansion will allow him to add new hygienist degrees without reducing enrollment in the clinic's current dental assistant programs.
She said Lakeshore already has current and former students inquiring about the new program.
“I personally go to the dentist, and the assistants really appreciate hearing that I'm getting my dental hygiene back,” Sauer said. “They have completed their dental assistant training, worked in the field for a while, and are ready to come back and take the next step.”
Funding will begin training a new breed of dentists
Northcentral Technical College in Wausau will receive the largest grant of $2.2 million. The university will create the state's first dental treatment training program, a new mid-level provider approved for accreditation by the state Legislature in January.
Angela Rosler, dean of NTC's School of Health Sciences and Community Services, said the effort to bring the state accreditation took about eight years and was driven by the needs of the state's rural areas.
“There is a lack of oral care in rural areas,” she says. “The Dental Therapist Pathway was actually created to meet the need to provide additional practitioners to rural communities and optimize the overall health of their patients.”
Rosler said the development of the new program, which could begin as early as fall 2025, would not have been possible without funding from the state. The grant will add eight chairs to NTC's dental clinic, which is currently at capacity, and will open a dental simulation lab to allow students to practice higher-level skills, Rosler said. He said he plans to install one.
She said she plans to hire a dentist to oversee the program and allow students to provide preventive services as well as restorative care to more than 1,000 patients a year at the clinic.
The university also plans to add an Extended Functional Dental Assisting (EFDA) certification program. A new advanced certificate expands the scope of practice for dental assistants or assistants.
NTC is one of five technical schools using state funding to add an EFDA-certified program. Fox Valley Technical College plans to begin the program in fall 2025. Fox Valley Health Dean Ben McKenzie said the program has received strong interest from local dental offices looking to hire highly certified assistants.
“The (state) grant allowed us to think about how we could approach that program,” he said. “We plan to introduce his 12 dental simulators that are frequently used in the EFDA program. Once these are installed, we will actually set up the core schedule and meet the training needs of our students. You will be able to do that.”
McKenzie said Fox Valley has already expanded the number of dental hygienist students it accepts, increasing from 15 to 24 students this school year. He said about $1.7 million from the state will also be used to improve dental clinic infrastructure.
McKenzie said Fox Valley hopes to soon be able to accept patients from BadgerCare, the state's public insurance program. He said the expansion will allow the clinic to better serve people in the area who need dental care.
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