Private Student Loans for PT School: ROI and Income Analysis

Should you take out private student loans for physical therapy school? What’s the return on investment (ROI) of the degree, and can you trust the numbers your prospective program is sharing with you? After consulting for hundreds of physical therapists on six-figure PT school loans over the past 10 years, we have data to help inform your decision about how and whether to borrow for PT school.We will look at income ranges, talk about the debt load, and explore options to consider for private borrowing.Income as a physical therapist: Does it justify the student loans? Before you sign on the dotted line for six figures of debt, you need to understand what PTs actually earn.Here’s the income stats from the 242 physical therapists in our 2025 survey: PercentilePhysical therapist income10th$73,28025th$83,250Average$97,33775th$108,53090th$125,300 Average PT school debt The average student debt reported in our survey for PT school was $156,597.

The best way to compare ROI in this case is to look at what you would have earned with only a bachelor’s degree.Analyzing the ROI of PT school borrowing The cost of physical therapy school depends on where you go.Take a look at the YouTube video below showing a detailed analysis of borrowing for Duke University PT program (which represents any high-cost private school) vs.Texas Woman's University (representing a low-cost program).

PT school professional degree borrowing limits As of the writing of this post in early 2026, PT schools appear to be capped at the low $20,500 per year borrowing limit for federal student loans.If a degree is coded as professional school by the Department of Education, higher $50,000-per-year borrowing limits apply.If prospective students can borrow a max of $20,500 per year for PT school, only programs with direct costs of $30,000 to $35,000 or less will prove economical for more students.The reason is that if the typical PT income is around $100,000 annually, taking on substantial private student loans could quickly lower your after-tax and after-loan-payment income to less than what you would have earned by simply entering the workforce after completing your undergraduate degree.

Perhaps that’s OK for some students, as not all educational decisions should be made solely based on ROI and finances.How PT school borrowing used to work It used to be that you could take out federal student loans up to the full cost of attendance and repay just 10% of your income through income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, no matter how much debt you accrued.With that math, if you subtract 10% of your income as a physical therapist and it is more than what you would have made with a bachelor’s degree, then going to PT school made sense.Pretend you make $100,000 and lose $10,000 to IDR payments each year.

That net income of $90,000 is more than most folks would make with a bachelor’s degree.So the $250,000 DPT degree from a private university made economic sense under this old model.The new model means most PTs need to pay back loans With new, lower borrowing limits, most physical therapists need to plan on paying back their loans in full.If federal loans are capped at just $20,500 per year, Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) will become mathematically irrelevant for most PTs.

Paying 10% of their income for 10 years would wipe out most of their student loan balance, leaving little left to forgive.When looking at the math, low-cost PT programs still make financial sense.Many students could borrow modest amounts of private student loans from a place like Student Loan Planner that shows you rates from multiple lenders.But once you get above 1.5 times the expected income from your degree (for many PTs, that means projected debt above $150,000), the math doesn’t make much sense unless you want to get involved in the field for nonfinancial reasons or you’re willing to earn less to avoid needing to sit in front of screens in a boring office all day.

Getting help with how to borrow for PT school If you need help figuring out how to best borrow for PT school, you can book a consult with our team of experts at Student Loan Planner.We’d love to help you weigh the pros and cons of various options, discuss different borrowing strategies, and look at your long-term goals in helping you make the best decision for your potential career path as a physical therapist.