A National Survey of Accrued Student Loan Debt By Doctor of Physical Therapy Students
Purpose/Hypothesis:
Increasing levels of student loan debt are a concern among many health professionals, including physical therapy. High levels of student loan debt may delay the ability of graduates make major purchases; delay major life decisions such as marriage or having children; and delay making contributions to retirement plans. Although there are concerns, there is currently a lack of information on the amount of student loan debt accrued by DPT students. The purpose of this study is to determine the average amount of student loan debt accrued by students at public and private DPT programs, and the perceptions of students regarding their student loan debt.
Number of Subjects: 733
Materials and Methods:
A link to an online survey was emailed to the program directors of all accredited DPT programs in spring 2019 with directions to forward the link onto students who would be graduating in the spring or summer of 2019. 733 DPT students completed the survey, with 45.8% attending a public institution, and 54.2% attending a private institution.
Participants were asked, at the time of their graduation, their total amount (DPT plus any previous higher education) of accrued student loan debt, the amount of student loan debt accrued solely for their DPT program, if they were concerned about their ability to repay their student loans, and the estimated length of time required to pay back their student loans.
Results:
9% of subjects reported no student loan debt at the time of graduation. For subjects with at least some amount of student loan debt (n = 667), the mean amount of debt was $122,726 at the time of graduation, with the means for students attending public and private institutions being $103,481 and $138,361, respectively.
For subjects with at least some form of student loan debt, 81.1% were concerned about their ability to repay their loans, and 90.3% were concerned about their ability to make major purchases such as a house or a car in the future. For subjects with student loan debt, the mean estimated length of time it will take to pay off student loan debt was 15.03 years.
33.4% of subjects stated they had received education regarding managing their student loan debt as part of their DPT Program. There was a statistically significant (p < .01) difference between students attending public and private DPT programs regarding their total accrued student loan debt, the amount of student loan debt accrued just for attending a DPT program, and the estimated number of years to pay off student loan debt.
Conclusions:
A majority of surveyed DPT students were concerned about their ability to repay their student loans after graduation. One definition of an affordable level of student loan debt is having less debt at graduation than one’s starting annual salary. 60.7% of subjects had a student loan amount over the average starting salary of a physical therapist.
Clinical Relevance: High levels of student loan debt may cause negative ramifications for physical therapists and high educational costs may decrease the number of candidates applying for DPT Programs.