Here's my thoughts on this, and of course many people can counter with my logic; I'm, okay with that and welcome it for the sake of good discussion:
- If you love it, do it. You heard it all before, most PT's love what they do and have a lot of flexibility with schedule and type of work (travel, inpatient, outpatient, etc.)
- America's the few countries where you can have comfortable life with debt. Be frugal, pay off as much as you can of your loan, but don't think it will completely ruin your life if you have a 70k salary job. Chances are if you got into PT school, you are logical enough to be financially smart, and 70,000 isn't too bad relative to other jobs.
- My career is in the fitness field. Personal training (6 years exp.) wise, I get 55 - 90 per hours, but 40 hours a week is hard to come by and there's so many large gaps it becomes a grind (I'll disclose my salary; even with that grind I made 51k before taxes). This also means no benefits or paid vacation time. I was also offered a management job for a corporate fitness company in CA (CA, so think higher wages due to living cost here), and they offered 45k + bonuses + benefits (I'd also be required to still train raising it to about 52-54k a year w/o bonuses included). Not enough considering an
avg. home price in Silicon Valley is about 900k. Other coworkers who worked similar positions for similar pay said they grind you to 60 hours a week and huge sales pressure. If I wanted to make 70k in that job I would have to grind for about 6-10 years just to get paid 70k annually assuming I don't burn out. So to me, 2 years in school with 6 figure debt is okay because I know my earning potential, potential raises, and ability to work PRN with a PT license is better. In short, return of investment is better than doing your current job, unless you're already at 70k salary.
- A well-known PT around the area talked to us all about the importance about post-bac degrees. Many people will call you crazy for accumulating debt or going back to school for years (2-4 years for any more school sounds insane short term), but when you come back with your new degree and new job, you will see those people in the exact same job, doing the exact same thing.
- With a license you have access to a great job market that others without your education/license can not access.