Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science/Research and Allied Professions at Bluffton University

Bluffton's lab science program faces a challenge common to smaller schools—we can't track actual outcomes for its graduates because the cohorts are too small for the Department of Education to report. What we can see from comparable programs in Ohio suggests first-year earnings around $63,568, which tracks closely with both the state and national median for this field. That's solid income for a healthcare-adjacent career, though it notably trails the state's top performers like Cincinnati ($72,390) by about $9,000.

The estimated debt of $25,269 looks manageable against those projected earnings—a 0.40 debt-to-earnings ratio means graduates would owe roughly five months' salary. That's actually better than both the national median ($26,022) and considerably better than Ohio's typical debt load ($30,178) for this credential. Similar programs across Ohio produce a tight range of outcomes, from around $61,000 to $72,000 first-year, suggesting the field itself offers stability even if individual schools vary.

The uncertainty here matters: without actual graduate data from Bluffton specifically, you're betting that their outcomes mirror the state average rather than landing at either extreme. For a family paying private school tuition, that ambiguity deserves serious consideration—especially when larger Ohio public universities produce verifiable outcomes in the same range with potentially lower sticker prices.