PA Students Rely on Student Loans to Pay for PA education
85% of PA students took out educational loans by the time they finished their PA programs according to the Student Report 3 from the Physician Assistant Education Association (PAEA).
The PAEA is the national organization that represents PA programs in the U.S. The PAEA is responsible for monitoring and accrediting PA programs. The Student Report 3 is a combination of results from two surveys. The 2018 Matriculating Student Survey (MSS) collects information from entering PA students. The 2018 End of Program Survey (EOPS) gathers information from graduating PA students.
The report gives a lot of information on PA students, which includes demographics, experience in PA school, pre-PA school, future PA career and financial information.
PA school can be expensive and in this report we see that most students heavily rely on educational loans to pay for their education. About 50% of students entered PA school with outstanding student loans from undergraduate and pre-PA education. The median amount of pre-PA school educational loans for matriculating students was $25,000.
Undergraduate education is often less than graduate education and with 50% of students needing student loans for undergraduate education, we can see why so many need to rely on student loans for PA school. Although student loans might be needed to pay the bulk of PA education there are other opportunities to help finance PA education. As PA students went through their PA programs they earned more grants, PA student scholarships or stipends for PA education. Only 16.9% of matriculating students received these types of awards, and this increased to 29.4% for end of program students.
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Overall the percentage of students who were able to obtain grants, scholarships and stipends was low. Even if they were lucky enough to earn these, most were not able completely rely on them to fund their PA education. Matriculating students had a median of $6,550, and end of rotation students had a median of $5,000 in these types of awards.
Students often underestimate the cost of school or don’t always think about the ramifications of paying for school. As students went through their PA programs it appears more had to rely on student loans. There could be a variety of factors that led to this, but one factor might be an underestimation of how much education was going to cost, as the cost of attendance is more than just tuition. 73.5% of matriculating students took out education loans, and this jumped up to 85.2% of students by the end of their programs.
Not only did more students need to rely on student loans as they went through their PA programs, the amount of student loans also increased for end of programs students. Matriculating students had a median amount of $56,000 in education loans for PA education and end of program students had a median amount of $100,000. The majority of PA students anticipated total debt from attending PA school in the range of $50,000 to $149,000.
Once students completed their programs 54% received a salary that they expected with 33.8% receiving salaries in the $90,000 to $99,000 range. This is lower than the average PA, but lower salaries for new graduates are expected.
Although there are opportunities to have some of your PA education paid for, these opportunities are minimal. Even if you’re able to qualify for these, the vast majority of PA students rely on student loans to finance their education. Whenever possible try to seek opportunities to have someone else pay for your education, but don’t be surprised when you have to take out student loans. Have a financial plan before you ever start PA school and a plan on how you’re going to pay your student loans once you’re done with PA school before you ever sign up for student loans.
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