As you compare the top physician assistant degree programs, cost and value should be among the factors you’re looking at. It isn’t cheap to complete the education needed to become a PA. However, your education will pay off in the long run, qualifying you for a career that comes with a six-figure median salary. Understanding how much your degree will cost and how much you can expect to make can help you decide what you’re willing to spend to be a physician assistant and make smart financial choices that can help you pay off your student debt.
Salary Expectations and Student Debt
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On average, you can expect to spend between $70,000 and $90,000 on your master’s degree program in physician assistant studies, according to BeMo Academic Consulting. That’s a lot of money, but let’s go beyond the sticker shock to analyze that cost.
The average cost of a master’s degree in general – not specific to PA progra ms – is between $30,000 and $40,000. Master’s programs at high-status universities can sometimes creep up to $100,000 – and they won’t necessarily get you a job with as high a wage as physician assistant. Further, when you compare the cost of a master’s degree in PA studies to the cost of the four years of medical school needed to become a doctor – on average, $200,000 to $300,000 – you’ll see that opting for the shorter physician assistant program saves you a lot of money.
How long it’s likely to take to pay off your loans – and how much you’ll wind up paying, once you factor in interest – depends on how much money you make. For physician assistants, the median annual salary is $112,260, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Once you get started in your career, you could earn more in a single year than it cost you to prepare for the profession. Of course, you still need to pay other expenses besides your student loans, like rent or a mortgage, food costs, utilities and more, but overall, this is certainly a salary you can survive on. It’s considerably more than the $39,810 median wage that the BLS reports for all occupations or even the $82,380 median salary for all health diagnosing and treating practitioners.
You can’t expect your entry-level salary to be on par with the median salary for PAs of all experience levels. However, unlike doctors, PAs don’t complete a low-paying residency after graduating. Starting salaries for physician assistants can be at or above the mid-$80,000 mark.
Stretching Your Income as a PA
If you’re still worrying about the financial implications of your student loan debt, there are plenty of ways to save more money and pay down your debt. If you know you want to be a physician assistant, you should plan for taking on the extra expense of graduate school early on. If you minimize the amount of student debt you accrue for your bachelor’s degree, that cuts down the total amount you owe. You can make the total cost of your education cheaper in several ways, such as by starting your studies at a community college, applying for plenty of scholarships and choosing a public in-state school where your tuition would be much cheaper than if you went out of state or attended a pricy private college.
Being smart about the loans you take on and your payment plan can help you better cope with the costs of a PA program. Many students don’t realize that they have several repayment plan options for their federal student loans. If you’re have trouble making your student loan payments early on in your career, choosing a repayment plan option like the graduated repayment plan, extended repayment plan, income-based plan or pay as you earn plan can make your payments more affordable. On the other hand, if you’re able to pay a little extra on your student loans, you can save a lot of money in interest in the long run.
Finally, there are ways you can boost your income as a physician assistant. Many PAs make extra money by picking up locum tenens shifts with another employer on top of their primary full-time job, according to the American Academy of PAs. These are temporary jobs where you are basically filling in for other staff who may be on vacation or temporary leave, and they can pay very well. Most physician assistants work a regular 40-hour workweek, even if their work schedules don’t coincide with normal business hours, so picking up an extra shift here or there is feasible and can really help you pay down your student loans faster.
You can also make more money by pursuing work in certain specialties. Many PAs will change their specialty at some point, often to boost their earning potential, but you should choose a specialty that you enjoy and won’t quickly get tired of practicing.
Additional Resources
What Is the Salary Range for a PA?