Allied Health and Medical Assisting Services at Montgomery County Community College

Montgomery County Community College's Allied Health program shows something unusual: graduates earn nearly $40,000 right after finishing—putting them ahead of 80% of similar programs in Pennsylvania and 95% nationally. That's roughly $11,000 more than the typical PA medical assistant starting out. The debt level of $9,500 is manageable, translating to just three months of initial earnings.

The catch? Earnings drop sharply to $27,000 by year four, falling below the state average. This pattern could reflect several dynamics: perhaps graduates use medical assisting as a stepping stone before transitioning to other healthcare roles, or maybe the initial cohort includes more experienced workers returning for credentials. With fewer than 30 graduates in this dataset, individual career paths can skew the numbers dramatically.

For parents, the low debt-to-earnings ratio (0.25) means minimal financial risk even if the earnings trajectory holds. The strong initial placement suggests the program connects students to decent-paying entry positions in the competitive Philadelphia healthcare market. Just understand that medical assisting typically doesn't offer dramatic wage growth—the Bureau of Labor Statistics pegs median pay around $38,000 nationwide—so those first-year earnings may represent the career ceiling rather than the floor.