Bachelor's · earnings grade

Is a Rehabilitation degree worth it?

Graduates earn a median $31,314 two years after finishing, more than 22% of bachelor's majors. Measured across 281 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.

D

The verdict on the money

Financially it is a slower start than most majors at this level — worth planning your borrowing around.

Median earnings $31,314 2 years after finishing · per graduate
Typical range $27,488–$34,704 middle half of US programmes
Over no degree vs $39,520 high-school median
Graduates a year 3,840 281 programmes

Where a Rehabilitation degree pays best US programmes ranked on their own graduates' median earnings two years out.

#University1 yr out2 yrs out3 yrs outGraduates/yr
1 CUNY York College $64,562 $71,351 $70,969
2 D'Youville University not published $56,641 $61,652 23
3 Shenandoah University cost & debt at this university → $31,452 $41,565 not published 7
4 State University of New York at Cortland $31,202 $38,289 not published 4
5 University of Wisconsin-La Crosse $34,193 $38,122 $44,879 35
6 Wartburg College cost & debt at this university → not published $37,208 not published 12
7 Eastern Michigan University cost & debt at this university → $32,830 $37,054 $43,971 52
8 Boston University cost & debt at this university → $32,935 $36,717 $46,466 29
9 Central Michigan University cost & debt at this university → $35,927 $36,111 $35,652 24
10 Assumption University $31,749 $36,092 $45,486 42
11 Grand Valley State University cost & debt at this university → $36,184 $35,594 $38,461 33
12 Temple University cost & debt at this university → $35,630 $35,416 $39,811 71

What this figure does and does not tell you

Two medians are worth separating. $31,314 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $30,771 is what the typical programme reports, counting a class of twenty the same as a class of two thousand. The weighted figure is higher here, which means the larger programmes in this field are the better-paying ones.

It is the median of what real graduates of this exact major earned, taken from tax records two years after they completed. It is not a starting salary, not an average of job adverts, and not a projection. The median bachelor's major in this dataset reports $36,497, so Rehabilitation sits below the middle by $5,183.

Two years is early in a career. Fields with long training pipelines — medicine, law, research — look weaker at this point than they will at ten, while trades and applied technical fields peak sooner. Read a low figure in a long-pipeline subject as "slow start", not "bad degree".

There is no debt figure here on purpose. The Department of Education publishes earnings by field of study but not borrowing, so nobody can honestly tell you the debt of a specific major. Debt is published per institution — that is where our university cost pages carry it.

Rehabilitation at other levels

Scholarships for Rehabilitation students

Whatever the subject pays, the money you do not borrow is the money you keep.

See all Rehabilitation scholarships →

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Rehabilitation: the questions people ask

How much do Rehabilitation graduates earn?
The median bachelor's graduate earns $31,314 two years after finishing (weighting each programme by how many students it graduates), across 59 US programmes that publish the figure. One year out it is $30,976.
Is a Rehabilitation degree worth it?
Financially it is a slower start than most majors at this level — worth planning your borrowing around.
What is the salary range for Rehabilitation?
Half of US programmes report medians between $27,488 and $34,704. Where you study moves this figure more than most applicants expect.
How many people graduate in Rehabilitation each year?
About 3,840 students complete a bachelor's in this field each year across 281 US programmes.
Does this include student debt?
No — and deliberately. The Department of Education publishes earnings by field of study but not debt, so any "debt by major" figure you see elsewhere is an estimate. Debt is published per institution, which is why our university pages carry it and this page does not.

Classified by the Department of Education as Rehabilitation and Therapeutic Professions (CIP 5123). Source: US Department of Education College Scorecard, field-of-study earnings (median earnings of graduates who received federal financial aid, measured 1–3 years after completion). Figures are per major and credential level, pooled across US programmes. Information only, not financial advice.