Forestry at University of Arkansas at Monticello

A debt-to-earnings ratio of 0.53 looks manageable on paper—similar forestry programs nationally suggest around $22,600 in loans against first-year earnings near $43,000—but there's an important wrinkle here. This is the only forestry bachelor's program in Arkansas, which means there's no local benchmark to gauge how UAM's outcomes might differ from the national pattern. With nearly half of students receiving Pell grants, many families are counting on this degree to deliver reliable returns, yet we're working entirely with estimates drawn from other schools' graduates.

The field itself typically produces stable, if modest, outcomes. Forestry professionals find work with government agencies, timber companies, and conservation organizations, and the national data suggests these positions support a reasonable debt load. The question is whether UAM's rural Arkansas location—far from major timber markets or federal land management offices—affects job placement in ways the national figures won't capture.

Given the uncertainty, treat this as a calculated risk rather than a known quantity. If your child is genuinely drawn to forest management and willing to relocate for work, the estimated debt burden shouldn't be crushing. But without actual graduate outcomes from this specific program, you're betting on UAM matching what other forestry schools deliver—and with no Arkansas alternatives to compare against, that bet is harder to evaluate than it would be in states with multiple programs and transparent data.