How much does a dental hygienist make in a year after graduating hygiene school?

To answer your question, Dental Hygienist have a range salary. According to the information I retrieved from www.learnhowtobecome.org, it says for dental hygienists can make anywhere from 46,000 a year to 96,000 a year. But the average is 70,000 a year. But keep in mind, the price range is also depending on location and how much experience you have.

http://www.learnhowtobecome.org/dental-hygienist

Good luck with your schooling.

I think it is more realistic to expect to make between $25,000 to $30,000 in your first year as a dental hygienist. There is something very wrong if the practice wants to pay you a lot more than that in your first year - they have bad patients who are nasty people or they have blood-borne diseases like hepatitis or AIDS. But even in your first year, you can take on multiple sites and practices to be working 12+ hours a day any and all days per week. So it is possible to make a lot more if you work yourself to exhaustion. Also, I've seen some dentists offer cash incentives to the hygienist to offer patients additional services, like fluoride treatments or nitrous oxide and if the patient pays cash, you take home cash - which is possibly illegal because if you decide not to claim it as income on your taxes, you can run into trouble. On the other hand, your income grows faster. One practice I worked in as a new dentist, the hygienist was making more than twice what I was making, and she wasn't even trained as a hygienist, she was an RN!!! But she took home hundreds in cash every week. It will depend on what kind of hours you want to work, whether it is a private practice or clinic or hospital setting, or even going out to private homes to care for the home bound population. Good Luck!