Health Services/Allied Health/Health Sciences at Lee University

Lee University's Health Services program shows a puzzling contradiction: graduates earn nearly $9,000 below the national median for this field, placing them in just the 5th percentile nationally—yet they're right at the median for Tennessee programs. This tells us more about Tennessee's health services education landscape than about Lee specifically. The state's programs collectively underperform national benchmarks, and Lee sits in the middle of that pack.

The debt picture is manageable at $26,000, roughly matching what students borrow elsewhere for this degree. With first-year earnings barely covering the debt amount, graduates face typical entry-level healthcare worker economics—tight but workable if earnings grow with experience. The concern is whether this broad "Health Services" degree provides the specialized credentials that drive salary growth in allied health fields, or if graduates would be better served by more targeted programs like nursing or respiratory therapy.

Here's the critical caveat: this data comes from fewer than 30 graduates, making it statistically unreliable. For a parent evaluating this program, the real question is which specific healthcare career path their student is pursuing. If Lee offers strong preparation for a licensed healthcare role with clear job prospects in the Cleveland area, the modest debt could be justified. But if this is a general health sciences degree without direct career licensure, both the low earnings and Tennessee's overall weak performance in this category should prompt serious questions about alternatives.