20 best physical therapy schools in 2024

If you’re considering physical therapy as a career – great! Thanks in large part to a rapidly growing aging population, physical therapists are in high demand in the United States, with an above-average growth rate of 15% according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Physical therapists are well paid, too, with a (2022) median salary of $97,720.

To get there, though, you’ll need to put down a decent amount of money for a physical therapy program for licensure, and most PT programs are known to be costly.

To support you in deciding on a PT school you can feel good about, we list the best physical therapy schools in the country by value for money.

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How to become a physical therapist

Altogether, becoming a physical therapist takes about 7 years: 4 years to earn a bachelor’s degree, and 3 years to complete a physical therapy graduate program.

What is a Doctor of Physical Therapy degree?

A Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) is the professional degree required to become a physical therapist in the United States, and the only degree given out by CAPTE-accredited physical therapy programs today.

A handful of schools offer a PhD in Physical Therapy program alongside their standard DPT program.

Why a doctorate program?

Before becoming a doctorate-only program, professional training for physical therapy in the United States took the form of a bachelor’s degree and certificate, then a master’s degree – at this point, more closely resembling physical therapy programs internationally.

The move to a doctorate-level PT program has a few plausible reasons, such as expanding patients’ direct access to physical therapists, who normally require a doctor’s referral.

Officially, though, the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) stated that a DPT degree recognizes that patients have complex needs, and effective treatment of those needs requires a doctorate-level education.

Top physical therapy schools – ranked by value for money

Not every Doctor of Physical Therapy program is made equal in terms of its cost or future earning potential, and students can rack up a lot of debt on the path to becoming a physical therapist.

With these metrics in mind, we’ve compiled the top 20 best-value physical therapy programs in the country.

How we made this list

From over 200 physical therapy doctoral programs in the United States, we identified the top 20 DPT programs that offered the best value for money to students.

We define “best value for money” by average total debt at graduation among program graduates and their average yearly earnings 4 years after graduation.

Depending on how well these factors balance each other out (i.e., how easily a graduate can pay for the program with their post-graduation earnings), each school program gets a unique economic score – and the lower the economic score, the smarter the investment.

Our ranking methodology only uses government data. Sources include IPEDS, a survey system from the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), and College Scorecard, a user-friendly database of education data for the public from the Department of Education.

What makes a physical therapy school “good”?

Where you go to physical therapy school, whether it’s an ultra-prestigious institution, local college, or something in between, isn’t too important.

Because the bulk of what you’ll learn later as a licensed physical therapist will be on the job, not in the classroom, school prestige isn’t what makes a DPT program good. It is, in part, what makes it expensive, though.

These are some alternative indicators of a good-value physical therapy program:

In sum, try not to worry too much about school prestige and focus on value instead. After all, because DPT programs are notoriously expensive, you’ll need to make sure they pay off for you in the long term.

Physical therapy school requirements

Admissions for DPT programs are known to be competitive. Schools tend to accept a small pool of applicants, with acceptance rates often hovering around the low double or even single digits.

To put your best foot forward as an applicant, take note of what most physical therapy schools look for in a well-rounded application.

Application process

You can apply to most DPT programs through the Physical Therapist Centralized Application Service (PTCAS), an online portal that allows users to apply to multiple programs in one application.

For non-PTCAS participating schools, you’ll need to apply directly.

Is a physical therapy degree worth it?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, physical therapists make a median salary of $99,710 as of 2022. That’s about 52% higher than the national average across all occupations.

However, the average debt at graduation for physical therapy programs is $110,397, based on debt data from College Scorecard and IPEDS.

So, with decent average salaries (paired with sky-high tuition costs), it’s ultimately up to you to decide whether pursuing physical therapy is worth it. Paying off over $100,000 in debt in a few years isn’t impossible, but it’s no walk in the park either, and may prove to be more stressful than it’s worth – especially if physical therapy isn’t the career you truly want.

Before deciding, take stock of your goals – especially your financial ones – to gauge whether physical therapy school is a smart investment.

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Final thoughts

Physical therapy programs can be gratifying in more ways than one. Apart from providing students with a strong knowledge base in the field, they offer exciting opportunities to take in these concepts firsthand in clinical settings.

While the cost of DPT programs can add up, that final cost doesn’t have to be astronomical if you choose a program that offers the right balance between total cost and projected earnings. For further reading, check out our article on the cheapest physical therapy schools, ranked by median debt and total cost.

If you’re considering physical therapy but still curious about other fields, consider finding the right program for you in our quiz below.