Quick answer: Every CAPTE-accredited DPT program is hybrid at most. Physical therapists earn a median $102,760 per year, or $49.40 per hour (BLS OEWS, May 2025). The credential runs through a CAPTE-accredited Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT).
Physical Therapy at a Glance
Measure
Value
Median annual wage
$102,760
Median hourly wage
$49.40
Employed nationally
267,330
Bottom 10 percent
$77,140
Top 10 percent
$135,140
Middle half
$86,160 to $121,160
Projected change, 2024-34
10.9%
Annual openings
about 13,200
Wage and employment figures: BLS OEWS, May 2025. Growth and openings: BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34.
What Do Online Physical Therapy Degree Programs Actually Look Like?
Every CAPTE-accredited DPT program is hybrid at most. Anatomy, kinesiology, pharmacology and evidence-based practice coursework can run online, but hands-on lab work and full-time clinical education happen in person, because a physical therapist examines and treats patients directly.
Where This Sits on the Ladder
This is the licensed tier above credentials many readers already hold. The rungs run:
Physical therapy aide - no license, trained on the job
Physical therapist assistant - CAPTE-accredited associate degree, licensed, treats under a plan of care
Physical therapist - CAPTE-accredited doctorate, licensed, evaluates and writes the plan of care
For scale, physical therapist assistants show a median of $68,380 against $102,760 for physical therapists (BLS OEWS, May 2025).
How Fast Is the Field Growing?
Employment is projected to change by 10.9% between 2024 and 2034, with roughly 13,200 openings a year (BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34). Openings come from growth and from replacing people who leave the occupation, which is why the annual figure can look large relative to the percentage.
Why CAPTE Accreditation Decides the Outcome
The accreditation is not a quality badge, it is the gate. Graduating from a program with accreditation from CAPTE, the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education, is what makes a candidate eligible to sit the National Physical Therapy Examination through the FSBPT. Without it there is no exam seat, and without the exam there is no license in any state.
Separately from programmatic accreditation, the institution itself should hold accreditation from a recognized institutional accreditor. Credit transfer between institutions is decided by the receiving school and genuinely varies, so get any transfer evaluation in writing before enrolling.
What Does the Job Involve Day to Day?
Physical therapists examine patients, diagnose movement problems, write the plan of care and adjust it as the patient progresses. The clinical judgment is what separates the role from the assistant tier: an assistant carries out a plan, a therapist owns it. Practice settings split between outpatient orthopedic clinics, hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health and school systems.
Where Do Physical therapists Earn the Most?
State
Median annual wage
Employment
California
$124,190
26,580
Alaska
$115,280
680
New Jersey
$112,140
9,750
Nevada
$111,250
2,030
Maryland
$106,890
3,940
Highest-paying states, BLS OEWS, May 2025. Cost of living is not held constant, so a higher median does not automatically mean more disposable income.
Licensing and Credentialing
The national framework is the constant: a CAPTE-accredited program, then the National Physical Therapy Examination administered through FSBPT. What sits on top of that framework is set jurisdiction by jurisdiction, and this site does not hold a sourced dataset of per-state rules, so confirm the specifics with your state physical therapy licensing board before enrolling.
What You Will Study
The curriculum is front-loaded with basic science - gross anatomy with cadaver lab, physiology, biomechanics and neuroscience - before moving into examination and intervention coursework organized by system: musculoskeletal, neuromuscular, cardiopulmonary and integumentary. Differential diagnosis and imaging interpretation carry more weight than most applicants expect, because a physical therapist is frequently the first clinician to see a patient and has to recognize what is not a movement problem. The final phase is full-time clinical education across multiple settings.
Cost, Time and Whether It Pays
This site does not publish tuition figures, because there is no sourced dataset behind them and the number varies enormously by institution and residency. What can be stated is the wage structure the degree leads into. The middle half of physical therapists earn between $86,160 and $121,160, with the bottom 10 percent at $77,140 and the top 10 percent at $135,140 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). The gap between the 25th and 75th percentile is the honest range to plan against - not the median alone, and not the top figure.
Against the tier below, physical therapist assistants show a median of $68,380. The difference is what the additional education is buying, and it should be weighed against the years out of full-time earnings that the program requires.
How to Choose a Program
Evaluate a program on three things before anything else. First, current CAPTE accreditation status, checked on CAPTE’s own directory rather than the program’s marketing page, including whether it is on probation. Second, how clinical placements are secured - whether the program places you or expects you to find sites yourself, which is the single most common cause of delayed graduation. Third, the published first-time pass rate on the National Physical Therapy Examination, which programs report and which tells you more than any other number.
Where the Jobs Are
State
Employment
Median annual wage
California
26,580
$124,190
Texas
21,870
$105,810
New York
20,940
$100,660
Florida
16,290
$101,040
Pennsylvania
11,710
$101,380
Largest employing states, BLS OEWS, May 2025. Employment concentration and pay do not track each other, which is why the highest-paying states above are not the same list. State and metro pages linked below carry the full distribution.
What to Weigh Before Committing
The honest difficulty is not the coursework, it is the structure. A DPT is a post-baccalaureate doctorate, so a candidate coming from an assistant role is looking at completing a bachelor’s degree with prerequisite sciences before the clinical doctorate even starts, followed by full-time clinical education that is difficult to combine with employment. Applicants also underestimate how competitive admission is and how much documented observation across settings matters. The counterweight is that the destination is one of the better-paid clinical roles reachable without medical school, and the assistant tier below it is itself one of the faster-growing occupations BLS tracks, so there is a stable place to stand while working through it.
Questions to Ask an Admissions Office
Ask these before an application fee, and get the answers in writing rather than over the phone:
Is the program currently with accreditation from CAPTE, and has its status changed in the last three years? Verify the answer against CAPTE directly rather than the program’s own page.
Who arranges the required in-person hours, the program or the student, and what happens if no site is available in my cohort year?
What is the published first-time pass rate for the National Physical Therapy Examination, and for which graduating class?
Which prior coursework or credentials transfer in, and will you evaluate my transcript in writing before I enroll? Transfer is decided by the receiving institution and genuinely varies.
What is the total time to completion for someone in my situation, including prerequisites, and how many students in the last cohort finished on that schedule?
Colleges Offering This Degree
How we rank schools – graduation rate, graduate earnings, cost and retention.
Advertising plays no part.
This page lists 10 schools, closest group first, then ordered by
BOC Score with the highest at the top.
10 of them carry a score.
LOCAL RANK
Location / proximity to this page
Defines the local group
Graduation rate how often students finish
30%
Median earnings, 10 years after entry whether it paid off
25%
Average net price what students actually pay after aid; lower ranks higher
20%
Retention rate how many come back for year two
15%
Fully online availability whether you can study while working
10%
Scores come from IPEDS (2024) and the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard.
Earnings are for all graduates of a school, not one program, so treat them as a signal
about the institution rather than about this subject.
Sponsored listings are paid placements and are labelled as such; they are separate from
this ranking and never change it. Read the full methodology.
Can you earn a physical therapy degree completely online?
No. Programs with accreditation from CAPTE are hybrid at most. Didactic courses can be delivered online, but laboratory work and full-time clinical rotations are in person and scheduled during business hours. A program advertising a fully online DPT that ends in licensure should be treated as a warning sign.
How much do physical therapists make?
The national median annual wage for physical therapists is $102,760, or $49.40 per hour (BLS OEWS, May 2025). The bottom 10 percent earn $77,140 or less and the top 10 percent earn $135,140 or more, across 267,330 physical therapists nationally.
What is the difference between a PTA and a physical therapist?
A physical therapist assistant holds a CAPTE-accredited associate degree and carries out a plan of care written by someone else, at a median of $68,380 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). A physical therapist holds a CAPTE-accredited doctorate, performs the evaluation and writes the plan, at a median of $102,760.
How long does a DPT program take?
The Doctor of Physical Therapy is a post-baccalaureate doctorate, so the timeline runs a bachelor's degree with prerequisite science coursework followed by the DPT itself. The final phase is dominated by full-time clinical education.
Does my PTA license transfer into a DPT program?
Not as automatic advanced standing. Some programs recognize prior coursework and clinical hours, but a DPT curriculum is built as its own sequence, and transfer is decided by the receiving institution and genuinely varies. The practical advantages are real anyway: documented patient-care hours and a clear understanding of the work.
How do I get licensed as a physical therapist?
The national framework has three parts: graduate from a CAPTE-accredited program, pass the National Physical Therapy Examination through the FSBPT, and apply to your state board. Boards add their own requirements around jurisprudence exams and background checks, so confirm the specifics with your state physical therapy licensing board before enrolling.
Is physical therapy a growing field?
Employment of physical therapists is projected to change by 10.9% from 2024 to 2034, with about 13,200 openings per year (BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34). Demand tracks an aging population and the shift toward treating movement problems without surgery.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025, SOC 29-1123 Physical Therapists.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections program, 2024-34.
About this guide: Researched and written by the TradeCareerPath Editorial Team. Our editorial team researches and sources every trade school and career guide using federal labor and education data, including BLS OEWS and Employment Projections, DOL apprenticeship records, IPEDS, College Scorecard, and state licensing boards. We follow the editorial standards documented at /editorial-policy/.
