A Comparison of Physician Assistant Programs by Tuition Costs

Abstract

Introduction: The development of physician assistant (PA) education programs grew out of a need to improve access to healthcare services in the United States. That need has resulted in a blossoming of PA education programs. Today there is a wide assortment of PA programs to choose from, but there has been little comparison of these programs from a financial standpoint. We undertook a descriptive study of PA programs by examining some of the opportunity cost variables that might be critically viewed by an applicant. Method: We obtained information available to the public in 2000 in 126 PA education tracks spread over 124 PA programs. This data was gathered from catalogs, Web sites, and/or by contacting the program. In public institutions, the in-state tuition cost was selected over the out-of-state cost. Total tuition cost was computed by dividing the first year's tuition by 12, then multiplying this amount by the duration of the PA program (in months). This and other data were entered into a spreadsheet and analyzed for differences in year 2000 dollars. Results: The total tuition cost of PA education ranges from $4,370 to $69,258. The average cost of a public- funded PA education was $14,366; a private education was $38,846. The tuition for a master's program track was, on average, $32,531 versus $22,685 for a bachelor's or certificate track. Private institutions averaged 44 (range 12-100) students per entering class while public institutions averaged 35 (range 10-80). The length of a PA program, on average, was 25-26 months, but ranged from 12-36 months. Privately funded programs tended to be longer in duration. Conclusion: There is almost a 16-fold difference from the low end to the high end of PA tuition costs. On average, the tuition burden for a public-funded PA education is approximately one- third of private education tuition. These differences are striking and raise the question of what a PA student gains from programs with high-tuition costs that cannot be achieved at a less expensive institution. The debt imposed on students by higher tuition PA programs may lead graduates away from lower-paying primary care roles to higher-paying nonprimary care positions in order to pay for their education.