Education at Benedictine College

A debt-to-earnings ratio of 0.70 isn't alarming by education major standards—peer programs nationally suggest graduates carry about $27,000 in debt against first-year earnings of roughly $39,000. That's manageable in a field where starting salaries are typically modest but stable. Education degrees lead to predictable career paths with union protections and pension benefits that raw salary numbers don't capture, though the financial payoff depends heavily on which state and district your child eventually teaches in.

What's less certain is how Benedictine's specific program performs relative to these national benchmarks. The school serves a largely non-Pell population (only 16% receive need-based aid) at a small Kansas Catholic college, which may indicate strong support systems but also limits our ability to verify outcomes. Kansas has seven education programs, but none report granular enough data to confirm whether Benedictine's graduates command typical salaries or place easily into teaching positions.

The practical consideration: if your child wants to teach and Benedictine offers the community and formation they're seeking, the estimated debt burden shouldn't be a dealbreaker. But confirm job placement rates and where recent graduates are actually teaching—those specifics matter more than estimated medians when evaluating a program this size.