Health Services/Allied Health/Health Sciences at Mount St. Joseph University

A $27,000 debt load for estimated first-year earnings of $35,810 sounds reasonable on paper—that 0.75 debt-to-earnings ratio sits right at the national median for this field. But here's what makes this harder to evaluate: both figures are estimates based on a handful of comparable programs in Ohio, and the variation among those programs is enormous. Mercy College of Ohio's graduates earn $65,046 in their first year—nearly double what similar programs in the state typically produce—while Otterbein's come in below $31,000. That $35,000 range tells you that not all health services degrees are created equal, and without actual outcomes data for Mount St. Joseph, you're essentially betting on where this program falls within that spectrum.

The debt burden itself isn't alarming if the earnings pan out, but with a moderately selective admissions profile and limited transparency into what specific careers these graduates actually enter, you're working with more uncertainty than you'd face at programs with reported data. The broad "Health Services/Allied Health/Health Sciences" category can include everything from health administration to medical assisting—fields with vastly different earning trajectories. If your child has a specific career goal, verify that this program directly leads there and check what Mount St. Joseph's actual job placement looks like for recent graduates, since the state medians won't tell you that story.