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10 Graduate Degrees that Deliver More Debt than Income

Graduate degrees can be expensive. And they can lead to a lot of student debt. Just consider a few of these statistics from Saving for College:

The average student debt for master’s degree graduates is $44,900 and $107,500 for Ph.D. degree graduates. In total, the average student debt for graduate degree recipients is $66,000. And the average debt load increases to $71,300 when outstanding undergraduate debt is taken into account.

Is all that student debt worth it? If the degree leads to a high enough increase in income. Then maybe so.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case with several graduate degrees. With some of the worst master’s degrees or doctorate degrees, the average graduate will end up with significantly more debt than annual income.

So what are the most worthless degrees available today? To find out, we looked at the average debt-to-income data of 2,250 Student Loan Planner® clients with graduate degrees. Here’s what we found.

10 graduate degrees that deliver more debt than income

Below are the worst master’s degrees and worst Ph.D. degrees for your wallet, ranked in descending order.

10. Architect

  • Average debt-to-income ratio: 2.25
  • Average debt: $180,000
  • Average income: $80,000

9. Dentistry (tie)

  • Average debt-to-income ratio: 2.5
  • Average debt: $380,270
  • Average income: $150,000

9. Teaching (tie)

  • Average debt-to-income ratio: 2.5
  • Average debt: $100,883
  • Average income: $40,000

9. Physical Therapy (tie)

  • Average debt-to-income ratio: 2.5
  • Average debt: $178,338
  • Average income: $70,000

8. Speech-Language Pathology

  • Average debt-to-income ratio: 2.7
  • Average debt: $134,273
  • Average income: $50,000

7. Law

  • Average debt-to-income ratio: 2.8
  • Average debt: $224,800
  • Average income: $80,000

6. Veterinary

  • Average debt-to-income ratio: 3.1
  • Average debt: $275,421
  • Average income: $90,000

5. Occupational Therapy (tie)

  • Average debt-to-income ratio: 3.2
  • Average debt: $204,846
  • Average income: $65,000

5. Psychology (tie)

  • Average debt-to-income ratio: 3.2
  • Average debt: $254,477
  • Average income: $80,000

4. Optometry

  • Average debt-to-income ratio: 3.4
  • Average debt: $275,706
  • Average income: $80,000

3. Social Work

  • Average debt-to-income ratio: 3.5
  • Average debt:  $141,313
  • Average income: $40,000

2. Acupuncture

  • Average debt-to-income ratio: 4.6
  • Average debt: $230,286
  • Average income: $50,000

1. Chiropractic

  • Average debt-to-income ratio: 4.9
  • Average debt: $246,246
  • Average income: $50,000

Why “official” debt-to-income ratio data can be misleading

To create our list of the worst master’s degrees and worst Ph.D. degrees, we used the average debt and earnings data of clients who contacted Student Loan Planner® for student loan plans.

As Travis Hornsby, founder of Student Loan Planner®, explained, “We recognize that’s a biased methodology (toward high-debt borrowers). But the data of the official methodology is also extremely biased.”

For example, in researching for this study, we looked at the most recent data from College Scorecard. And we quickly identified two ways graduate degrees can look better or worse than they really are.

Residency requirements can skew median earning data

As we started sorting through the College Scorecard data, we found that it really wasn’t all that useful. The first reason for this was that median earnings data was often drastically too low.

For example, physicians were shown to have weighted median earnings of $54,640. Take a look at each medical school’s median graduate earnings:

The Bureau of Labor and Statistics calculated the median physician salary to be $208,000. So what gives?

The problem is that the College Scorecard data only shows the median earnings of graduates in the first few years after graduation. But for professions that require residencies, immediate income after graduation will not represent the earning potential of their actual.

If you base the debt-to-income (DTI) ratio of a medical degree on a salary of $55,000 instead of $208,000, it will look much worse than what it really is. And graduate degrees that don’t require residencies will look better — even if in reality, they’re worse for your wallet.

Using the College Scorecard data, physicians had a weighted DTI of 3.27. But according to our client data, medical school graduates wind up with a more manageable DTI of 1.64.

Related: 10 Best States to Practice Medicine

That’s why Travis says, “To get an accurate picture of the real earning potential of a profession, income should only be reported after post-graduate training.”

Students who receive financial support can skew median debt data

Another bias is College Scorecard data includes every graduate. Including graduates that may have had family support to cover a lot of their tuition.

For example, take dental schools. Looking at the data below, you’ll find that the debt mean (average) is often significantly higher than the debt median.

Travis explains, “The only way that can happen is if you have a lot of people with very low balances to pull the debt median number down.”

To further illustrate this point, notice which medical school graduates ended up with the lowest debt means and medians — Stanford and Harvard.

So are we to believe that two of the most prestigious schools in the country also have the most affordable tuition? No. It’s obvious that both of these schools have a larger percentage of their student body who are receiving some sort of financial support.

But that’s not a proper examination of the debt-to-income ratio you could have after going to an average school or don’t come from a family of means. It’s really more of an examination of how wealthy your school or family is.

For a truer average debt picture, Travis says, “You need to look at the 90th percentile rather than the overall debt median.”

Unfortunately, College Scorecard doesn’t currently provide debt data on the 90th percentile. For this reason, we feel that Student Loan Planner®’s internal data may, in fact, better represent the typical graduate than the publicly available external data.

How to choose a worthwhile graduate degree

It is possible to find graduate degrees with better debt-to-income ratios. For example, Student Loan Planner® has found that nurse practitioners (NP) and PAs both tend to graduate with less debt than annual income.

So should you automatically cross a graduate degree off your list if the average debt is higher than one year’s worth of income? Not necessarily.

After all, graduate degrees are typically earned in two to four years. So it would make sense that your total debt, in many cases, will be higher than just one year’s worth of income. But you still want to be careful.

Finding a degree with a reasonable debt-to-income ratio

While there’s no hard-fast rule, choosing a graduate degree with an average DTI of 2.0 or less is a great start. Looking at the Student Loan Planner® data, here are a few graduate degree jobs that fit that criteria:

  • Dental specialist: 2.0 average DTI
  • College professor: 1.8 average DTI
  • Physician: 1.64 average DTI
  • NP: 1.3 average DTI

Of course, the average debt-to-income ratio of a graduate degree isn’t the only factor to consider. You’ll also want to take a look at each profession’s job outlook.

For example, Student Loan Planner® has previously discussed major job shortages for pharmacists. So despite a more manageable 2.2 DTI, a Doctor of Pharmacy or Pharm D. degree could be one of the most worthless degrees available today.

Making degrees with high debt-to-income ratios work

It is worth noting that many professions on the list have a huge degree of income variability. For example, dentists and physicians can make $400,000 or $150,000 depending on location and specialty.

Related: 11 Best Small Cities for Dentists

Lawyers could make $80,000 or $170,000, depending on whether or not you get a job at a big law firm. Learn more about the highest-paid lawyer jobs. By choosing the right area, location, specialty, or employer, you could make one of the worst master’s degrees or worst Ph.D. degrees work for you.

As Travis puts it, “You either want to go for a low DTI career or you want to bet on being at the top of a career with a high variance.”

Methodology

To come up with our list of graduate degrees that deliver more debt than income, we looked at the debt and income data provided by Student Loan Planner® clients.

Graduate degrees with less than 10 previous Student Loan Planner® clients were excluded from the study. In total, 2,250 masters or Ph.D. degree graduates were examined in the study, with 24 degrees represented.

Here is the full list of graduate degrees that were included in the Student Loan Planner® study:

  • Acupuncturist
  • Chiropractor
  • Dentist
  • Endodontist
  • Lawyer
  • NP
  • Nurse
  • OMFS
  • Optometrist
  • Orthodontist
  • OT
  • PA
  • Pediatric Dentist
  • Periodontist
  • Pharmacist
  • Physician
  • Physician assistant
  • Professor
  • Psychologist
  • PT
  • Social Worker
  • Speech-Language Pathologist
  • Teacher
  • Veterinarian

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