Gary Stocker investigates allegations that the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry is admitting more international students paying $100,000 in tuition while raising barriers for Oklahoma residents who pay $65,000. The whistleblower claims the school lowered admissions standards mid-year for high-paying outsiders, treating dental school seats like a revenue stream rather than a public service.
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This is Gary Stocker at College Viability. Let's go beyond the college brochure. If you were to take a stroll through the heart of Oklahoma City, you'd find a building dedicated to the bright white future of the Sooner State. It's the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry. For decades, this institution has stood as a gateway, a way for the sons and daughters of Oklahoma to take their place in the neighborhood dental clinics of Tulsa and Enid and Lawton, Oklahoma. It is by definition, the college, a public trust supported by the taxpayers for the taxpayers. But lately, if you look at the names on the roster, the names in the classroom, you might find that the Gateway has acquired a very expensive, very international toll booth. Consider the young Oklahoman. They spent years studying. They aced the exams. They want nothing more than to stay home and fix the smiles of the people who raised them. They apply to their state's only dental school, believing the odds are in their favor. After all, the school's mission is to serve Oklahoma. But behind the sterile, stainless steel doors, a different kind of math has taken over. A whistleblower. Yes, a whistleblower has stepped forward. Someone who has seen the ledgers, the finances, the numbers, and what they're describing isn't a mission of mercy. It isn't a mission of healing. It's a mission of money. You see, an Oklahoma student pays about $65,000 in tuition. That's a lot of nickels. But a foreign-trained student, someone coming from across the seas to join an advanced standing program, they pay nearly double that amount, upwards of $100,000. And suddenly the public trust began to look a lot like a high-stakes auction. The allegations are startling. The whistleblower claims that qualified local students, our own neighbors, our own citizens, are being pushed to the back of the line. Why? Why, you might ask? To make room for the advanced-standing students who can pay the premium tuition. In one instance, it's alleged that the school even changed its own rules midstream, lowering the academic requirements for those high-paying outsiders while the bar for Oklahomans remained sky-high. We like to think of our state universities as the bedrock of our states, the bedrock of our communities. We assume they are looking out for the home team, but at the OU College of Dentistry, that home team is finding that the seats in the front of the row, in the front row, have already been sold to the highest bidder. They wanted to build a world-class institution at the University of Oklahoma in their College of Dentistry, but in the process, they may have forgotten who signed the checks to build it in the first place. The school calls it international outreach. The whistleblower calls it a shakedown. And now we've gone beyond the college brochure. I'm Gary Stocker at College Viability.
