Is a PsyD Worth It? Graduate Debt and Earnings by School

Each row is one school’s pair of Scorecard figures for doctoral graduates in clinical, counseling and applied psychology: the median federal loan debt of graduates who borrowed, the median earnings figure, debt as a multiple of a year’s earnings, and Scorecard’s estimate of the monthly payment on that debt over ten years. The 35 schools cover 45 ranked PsyD programs. Rows run from the lowest multiple to the highest, split into three tables. A row marked “With PhD” is a school that also awards a PhD in the field, so its figures include PhD graduates and are not PsyD-only. Where Scorecard prints the number of borrowers behind a median, the row gives it.

The debt figure is Scorecard’s median of the Stafford and Grad PLUS loans disbursed at the school to graduates who borrowed, for the classes that finished in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years. It counts federal loans taken out at that school only, so private loans and loans taken out at other schools are outside it. The earnings figure is Scorecard’s median for graduates working and not enrolled, measured four years after completion for the classes of 2017-18 and 2018-19 (at 2 schools, as marked, one year after completion for the classes of 2020-21 and 2021-22), in 2024 dollars. The two figures describe different graduating classes from the same release, so a multiple shows the size of a school’s debt beside its pay, not one person’s finances.

At the median school, Scorecard’s ten-year payment is $1,877 a month, which over a year comes to 22% of the median earnings figure before taxes. Some rows rest on few borrowers, and those are marked with their count. At the median school debt is 1.6 times a year’s earnings, and 8 schools sit at twice or more, so the answer to whether a PsyD is worth the cost starts with which school.

The debt in the tables was borrowed under the old federal rules. Public Law 119-21 says that “for any period of instruction beginning on or after July 1, 2026, a graduate or professional student shall not be eligible to receive a Federal Direct PLUS Loan under this part.” It sets the Direct Unsubsidized limit for a professional student at $50,000 a year and $200,000 in all, against $20,500 a year for any other graduate student, with a lifetime limit of $257,500. An interim exception covers a student who was enrolled in the program and had received a federal loan for it as of June 30, 2026.

Whether a PsyD student borrows at the professional limit depends on the Department of Education’s definition of a professional degree. Its final rule, effective July 1, 2026, names Clinical Psychology (Psy.D. or Ph.D.). On June 24, 2026 a federal court in the District of Columbia preliminarily stayed part of that definition, and during the stay Federal Student Aid treats a list of programs as professional degrees that includes Clinical Psychology (Ph.D.; Psy.D.), Counseling Psychology (Psy.D.) and School Psychology (Psy.D.). That list was last updated October 30, 2026 and may change as the cases proceed.

At 6 schools in the tables, the median borrower’s federal debt is above $200,000, the most a professional student can now borrow in Direct Unsubsidized loans: The Chicago School, Chicago Campus ($206,673), The Wright Institute ($225,886), Palo Alto University ($286,181), Pacific University, Oregon ($256,017), Midwestern University, Downers Grove ($263,152) and Adler University, Chicago ($293,305). That debt was borrowed under the old rules. New loans also repay differently: the Department now offers new borrowers two plans, the Repayment Assistance Plan and the Tiered Standard Repayment Plan, so Scorecard’s ten-year payment describes the earlier classes, not a new borrower’s schedule.

Money is only half of what makes a PsyD worth it, and the debt and earnings figures describe graduates. Graduating takes an internship, and internship match rates differ widely by program; licensure takes the national exam, and EPPP results by school type show how pass rates differ. The lowest-tuition PsyD programs are ordered by published tuition alone, while the national PsyD ranking scores cost beside outcomes such as the match and pass rates.

Time counts as well. How long a PsyD takes sets out the years each program reports to the degree, and Direct Unsubsidized borrowing is now capped at $50,000 a year at the professional limit. What makes a PsyD worth it for one student is that school’s row, its tuition, its match rate and its time to degree, read together.