Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing at Kennesaw State University

Kennesaw State nursing graduates start strong with $80,560 earnings—beating 60% of Georgia nursing programs and landing above the national median. But here's what makes this tricky: earnings actually drop to $71,422 by year four, falling below both state and national medians during what should be prime earning years. With a robust sample of over 100 graduates, this pattern isn't a data fluke. Your child would be paying off $25,093 in debt while watching their earning power decline, which runs counter to the typical career trajectory for nurses.

That earnings dip matters more than you might think. Several nearby Georgia schools—including East Georgia State College and Georgia Highlands—produce graduates earning $83,000+ with similar or lower debt loads, and those programs don't show the same downward trend. The 0.31 debt-to-earnings ratio looks manageable on paper, but it's calculated against that first-year peak, not the lower earnings your child would actually be experiencing three or four years out.

If your child is set on Kennesaw for other reasons (location, campus culture, scholarship offers), the nursing program won't derail their career—they'll still enter a high-demand field with reasonable debt. But the numbers suggest looking closely at what's driving that earnings decline and whether other Georgia nursing programs might offer a straighter path to stable, growing income.