Return on Investment in Physical Therapy: Professional Tension.

Abstract

Student debt in physical therapy has received increasing attention since 2016 when the House of Delegates unanimously passed RC 11-16 that charged the APTA Board of Directors to evaluate student debt in physical therapy and develop a plan to address it. Recently published studies of student loan debt in physical therapy have provided evidence supporting the concerns about increasing student debt. Return-on-investment (ROI) is defined as a ratio between net profit over a period of time and cost of an investment at a point in time. In higher education, however, ROI has traditionally consisted of a more complicated formulation of economic and non-economic factors benefitting both the individual and the public. The consideration of all factors (economic and non-economic, individual and social) in the evaluation of ROI becomes particularly important in the professions, given the autonomy society affords the professions and the responsibility the professions have to provide a greater social good. Understanding ROI from economic and non-economic perspectives at the individual level is critically important if the profession is to meet its responsibility to society and fulfill its vision. The profession also must investigate ROI from a systems-level that includes how physical therapy education is financed, what the actual costs are for that education, and what the economic and non-economic returns are for those investments.