Lane Community College to close low-cost South Eugene dental clinic 30

Lane Community College’s low-cost dental clinic on Willamette Street in South Eugene will close June 30, removing one of Eugene’s few affordable options for restorative dental care and a long-running training site for dental hygiene students. The closure comes as the college moves through a budget-cutting plan aimed at closing a roughly $4 million deficit.

The Willamette Street clinic opened in 2014 with a dual purpose: it gave patients lower-cost care and let students build hands-on experience outside the classroom. LCC’s dental hygiene program page says students still use the college’s main-campus dental lab and gain experience at the Willamette Street clinic, but that arrangement is now ending for the public-facing clinic. The college’s current dental clinic page says the Willamette Street site will no longer provide dental services and directs people seeking dental hygiene services to request a complimentary appointment.

Jenna McCulley, a college spokesperson, said LCC is in the business of education rather than dental administration, and that the new on-campus dental facility is better suited to student instruction than to serving as a community dental home. That distinction matters in South Eugene, where the Willamette Street clinic had functioned as a rare low-cost entry point for people without dental insurance and for families trying to avoid private-practice prices.

The closure is part of a much larger financial reset at LCC. The college’s FY2027 mitigation strategies represented about $4.2 million in ongoing adjustments, and the Lane Community College Board of Education approved the mitigation framework in January and again in a March 4, 2026, special board meeting. The plan has already led to cuts of about 20 positions and multiple academic programs. LCC’s March 2026 budget message also said the Health Clinic would remain open and continue serving students, showing the dental-clinic shutdown was a separate decision.

For patients who relied on the clinic, the next stop will be less convenient and may be harder to navigate. The Oregon Health Authority says Oregon Health Plan dental coverage is available, but patients may need help finding a participating dentist through their coordinated care organization or OHP Client Services. The agency also points people to 211info for low-cost dental options. Lane County says Community Health Centers of Lane County offers no-cost dental services for children in families that receive WIC, though that is far narrower than the college clinic’s broader reach.

The loss lands in a county already designated as a dental Health Professional Shortage Area, a status that reflects limited access across Lane County and nearby Oregon counties. For students, the closure narrows one more pathway to supervised patient care. For patients in Eugene’s South Hills and beyond, it takes away a familiar low-cost clinic at a time when finding affordable dental care is already difficult.