MAJORS · 16 OF 19 BY ROI
Is a health and nursing degree worth it?
On average, yes — the mean lifetime ROI is +$775,786. But the spread is the real story.
MEAN LIFETIME ROI · FREOPP 2021 · COHORT-WEIGHTED
+$775,786
across 2,285 bachelor’s programs · 401,246 graduates
MEDIAN GRADUATE
+$802K
MIDDLE 50% LAND BETWEEN
+$475K ⟷ +$1.07M
NEVER BREAK EVEN
6.8%
MEDIAN BREAK-EVEN AGE
27
ADJUSTED FOR REAL COMPLETION RATES
+$413K
IF YOU DROP OUT
−$115K
The biggest fields inside Health and Nursing
- Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing. 274,445 grads +$1.00M
- Health and Medical Administrative Services. 32,075 grads +$307K
- Public Health. 18,936 grads +$190K
- Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, and Treatment Professions. 14,055 grads +$640K
- Health Services/Allied Health/Health Sciences, General. 14,005 grads +$266K
Mean lifetime ROI per field, cohort-weighted. A category average hides this spread — and the per-school spread inside each field is wider still.
Subfield deep-dives inside Health and Nursing
- Is a registered nursing degree worth it? 274,445 grads +$915K
- Is a healthcare administration degree worth it? 32,075 grads +$280K
- Is a public health degree worth it? 18,936 grads +$193K
- Is an allied health degree worth it? 14,055 grads +$583K
- Is a health sciences degree worth it? 14,005 grads +$187K
- Is a communication sciences & disorders degree worth it? 8,088 grads −$180K
- Is a medical laboratory science degree worth it? 6,073 grads +$793K
- Is a specialized health professions degree worth it? 5,788 grads −$41K
- Is a nutrition & dietetics degree worth it? 4,729 grads −$69K
- Is a rehabilitation sciences degree worth it? 4,677 grads +$120K
- Is a dental hygiene degree worth it? 4,672 grads +$685K
- Is a pre-health studies degree worth it? 4,375 grads +$99K
Median lifetime ROI per subfield, cohort-weighted. Each page carries the full statistics — spread, break-even age, the share who never break even.
How much of this work is AI already reaching for?
We read what the AI labs measured about their own machines. Microsoft and Anthropic scored how much of real occupations their AI is already used for — then warned it is not a measure of jobs being replaced. Here is where that lands Health and Nursing, judged on where its graduates actually work — not where the degree theoretically leads.
Where Health and Nursing graduates actually work — and how much of each job today’s AI is reaching for (0–1 applicability):
- 42% Registered Nurses 0.17
- 5% Nurse Practitioners 0.19
- 4% Pharmacists 0.40
- 4% Medical and Health Services Managers 0.20
- 3% Speech-Language Pathologists 0.16
And what people in this field actually bring to AI — the job tasks most taken to Claude, from Anthropic’s usage data:
- Counsel individuals and groups on basic rules of good nutrition, healthy eating habits, and nutrition monitoring to improve their quality of life.
- Develop or apply data mining and machine learning algorithms.
- Write articles, manuals, and other publications, and assist in the distribution of promotional literature about facilities and programs.
- Advise patients and their families on nutritional principles, dietary plans and diet modifications, and food selection and preparation.
Exposure isn’t replacement. The score is how much of the task AI touches — not whether the job survives, which turns on judgment, licensure, physical presence, and trust. Sources: Microsoft Research “Working with AI” (CC BY 4.0), the Anthropic Economic Index (CC BY), and U.S. Census ACS field-of-degree. Applicability scores are le-teen-derived, not original Microsoft figures; the task list is Anthropic’s observed Claude usage.
Questions
- Is a health and nursing degree worth it?
- On average yes — across 2,285 U.S. bachelor’s programs (FREOPP 2021, cohort-weighted), the mean lifetime ROI for Health and Nursing is +$775,786 and the median is +$802,488. 6.8% of graduates in this field never break even on the degree. The honest answer depends heavily on the specific program and school: the middle half of graduates land between +$474,708 and +$1,069,818.
- How long until a health and nursing degree pays off?
- Among Health and Nursing programs that do break even, the median graduate crosses into positive ROI at age 27 (FREOPP 2021). 6.8% of graduates in the field are in programs that never break even at all.
- Does the school matter for a health and nursing major?
- Enormously. The middle 50% of Health and Nursing graduates span +$474,708 to +$1,069,818 — a +$595K spread within one major. The same field can be a strong trade at one school and a losing one at another, which is why the per-school number matters more than the field average.
- Will AI replace health and nursing jobs?
- Careful with that word. Two AI labs — Microsoft and Anthropic — measured how much of real occupations their own AI is *already being used for*, then explicitly warned it is NOT a measure of jobs being eliminated. On that measure, Health and Nursing lands in the lower-exposure tier: the largest place these grads actually work is registered nurses (42% of them), where AI applicability sits at 0.17 on a 0–1 scale. Exposure means how much of the *task* AI touches — not whether the job survives, which also depends on judgment, licensure, physical presence, and trust. Near the bottom of AI's reach — this is work of bodies, care, and physical presence a model can't stand in for.
↓ Download the data (CSV) · All 19 categories with full statistics. Free to cite with attribution. · Methodology
Cite this:
LE TEEN (2026). “Health and Nursing: lifetime ROI statistics.” Data: FREOPP 2021. https://le-teen.com/majors/health-and-nursing