What is the Cost of Physical Therapy School Tuition in the US [2021]

I tried finding a list of all of the CAPTE accredited PT schools in the US and their costs. But, apparently that’s not a thing… well, not until today.

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So far, I’ve analyzed over 130 PT programs that are currently accredited. And I plan to analyze every accredited program in the United states if you guys are interested in that kind of thing. I’m genuinely curious - would that be something you guys actually care about? Drop me a like and leave a comment that you want to see the rest of the list and I’ll sit back down at my computer and get to work on the entire list.

Now, let’s dive into the details.

Please note that when performing my calculations, I did not factor in the “fees” that each university has. This was mostly a decision based on time and difficulty finding every fee. Average fees for tuition ranged from about 5% on the low end up to 28.5% on the high end of what I found. For example, Missouri state’s tuition is $44,156 and fees for the entire program are $12,609 - which is about 28.5%.

Another important point is that MANY colleges and universities listed that they increase by 2% to 7% PER year. And some even advertised that they were on the lower end of that - very exciting to only have a 3.5% increase in your tuition yearly, right?! So keep in mind that estimates did not include tuition rates for 2022-2023 in most cases, and you could potentially expect a marginal increase on the overall cost.

A note to any PT school out there that hears this: please add “how much is tuition” to your FAQ section. I promise you, it is a frequently asked question

And finally, I encourage you to fact check me. I would wager that I probably inputted a number incorrectly on a spreadsheet of this size. I promise, if I screwed something up, it was unintentional. If you find an error, by all means let me know with a comment.

Since you’ve made it this far, here are the numbers: I pulled the information for 50% of the CAPTE accredited PT schools.
The average in state tuition for 2020 was: $91,446
The average out of state tuition for 2020 was: $114,768

The lowest in state tuition so far was: Georgia Southern at $29,862
The highest tuition in state was Northeastern University at $183,606
The highest tuition out of state was Wayne State at $205,765
The lowest tuition for out of state was: Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University at $34,415

76/130 schools in state tuition is under 100,000
While only 36/130 out of state tuition is under 100,000

Keep in mind that this is only 50% of the CAPTE approved PT programs data.

Breakdowns state by state

Looking at all these numbers has been very interesting to say the least. I had 94,000 in student loans from undergrad and grad school combined when I graduated in 2012. And there are actually numerous PT schools out there that cost less NOW than when I graduated 8 years ago. When you consider dollar inflation and yearly tuition raises of 2-7%, that’s a surprising number. The vast majority of schools cost more undoubtedly -with some graduate schools alone costing more than double what it cost me to go to undergrad and grad school combined. I’m looking at you Wayne State. But the reality is some students' only option is attending one of these ridiculously expensive PT schools.
So what would I do?
Since you asked, I would protoize:
In state tuition
Neighboring state tuition discounts
Out of state where you can gain residency
Out of state where you can get some kind of scholarship/aid
Out of state low cost tuition

I’ll be making a part two to this video which will cover the remaining schools if you’re interested, and a video where i'll discuss - based on the data - if I were to go to PT school all over again how I would do it. If you’re also interested in downloading the spreadsheet, once it’s done i’ll have a download link for free for anyone interested.

Consider subscribing to stay up to date on these kinds of videos. And feel free to make some suggestions on what you’d like to see done with this data in the future.

Thanks for watching.