Health Professions at Bergen Community College

Similar health professions associate programs across the country suggest first-year earnings around $35,000—a starting point that makes the estimated $15,440 in debt manageable with a debt-to-earnings ratio of 0.44. That's well below the concerning 1.0 threshold where annual debt equals annual income. For context, the national median debt for these programs runs slightly higher at $17,930, suggesting Bergen's figures align with typical outcomes in this field.

The challenge here is understanding what "Health Professions" actually means—it's a broad umbrella that could cover everything from medical assisting to respiratory therapy, fields with vastly different career trajectories. Peer programs nationally show relatively tight earnings clustering (the 75th percentile is only $1,000 higher than the median), which suggests this category may skew toward entry-level healthcare roles rather than higher-paying technical specializations. That consistency also means there's less upside variation than you might hope for.

For parents weighing this investment, the debt load appears reasonable if your child has a specific healthcare career path in mind with clear licensing or certification outcomes. The real due diligence work involves confirming exactly which credential this program leads to and what the local New Jersey job market looks like for that specific role—because "health professions" covers too much ground to evaluate in the abstract, and these estimates can't tell you whether Bergen's program feeds into higher-paying specialties or more crowded entry-level positions.