StudentsAsCustomers

I AM UNCERTAIN if many exercise physiology professors are aware of the current state of employment prospects that await students once they have graduated. I have compiled various facts and figures to provide a basic understanding of what students are faced with when they leave school and the rewards that await them after dedicating 4 to 5 years to obtain a degree in exercise science.

First, let’s look at what it is costing the students to obtain the bachelors degree from a college or university institution. The following figures are based on the estimated national average cost of college for the 1999-2000 school year. The yearly cost includes tuition and fees, room and board, books and supplies, miscellaneous/personal expenses, and travel (1).

Currently, it takes most students 5 years to complete the bachelor’s degree. So based on the above figures, a bachelor’s degree in exercise science costs in-state students at a public institution between $44,000 and $54,000. Out-of state students pay between $65,000 and $81,000 for their education. The real shocker is that students at private institutions will pay between $95,000 and $118,000 for their exercise science degree. OUCH!

Once students have graduated, it’s time to pay back all those students loans. Unless of course their parents were lucky enough to pick up several thousand shares of Microsoft stock at the Introductory Price Offering. In order to repay the student loans within the average 10-year period, at an 8.25% interest rate, students will pay approximately $539.67 per month for a $44,000 loan. This is the minimum it would cost to complete a bachelors degree in 4 years. Students will pay $674.59 per month if they borrow $54,000 and do like most students and take a fifth year to complete the degree. If the students live in Minnesota and want to attend Michigan State University, they had better look at the out-of-state tuition fees closely, if not it will cost approximately $993.49 per month over a 10-year period to repay the $81,000 borrowed to have the honor of being a Spartan over the last 5 years.

Private colleges, where you are sure to get a better education (haven’t we all heard that), would guarantee bankruptcy for any recently graduated exercise physiologist I have ever known. If the students need to rely on student loans to finance their education, and they use the first year to decide a major (exercise science of course) and spent 4 more years to complete the degree, they can expect to pay out $1,447.30 per month for the $118,000 loan. Not to worry though, the newly graduated exercise physiologists will have a full 6 months to secure employment within the exercise physiology field before the first payment is due.

“Stop right there”, you say! “It is the students choice to get the degree in exercise science; we are not forcing them into the field”. Right you are, but what you forget is if the professors continue to pump out students after students with a degree in which they cannot find a job in, or secure a livable wage in, how long do you think the field, and how long will the departments survive? How long will it be until the word gets out that there is NO JOB market in the field for a graduate with a bachelors degree in exercise science? The healthcare field is licensing allied health professionals with 2-year associate and technical degrees and paying the graduates very good starting salaries (i.e., nurses, COTAs, PTAs, radiation therapists, radiology technicians, echo tech’s, CT tech’s, and surgical tech’s, etc). How long will it be until exercise science students start to realize that if they are going to spend $50,000 and 5 years for an education, then there should be employment opportunities. The present conditions are simply not cutting it anymore!

I know people with master’s degrees in exercise physiology that are wiping down benches at the local YMCA for $6.50/hr, just so they can say, “at least I am working in my field.” How long do you think it will be until the nurses, COTAs, PTAs associations write into “develops and implements exercise programs” their state licensures. There is a lot of money to be made in the exercise physiology field. It is a shame that the exercise physiologist will not make it. Finally, how long do you think it will be until your students start dropping out of the exercise science programs and new students stop enrolling? It’s very simple math, no students, no exercise physiology programs. Honestly, how long do you think the field of exercise physiology will last if there is no job market and graduates know they will not be able to make a living? There are very few of those $6.50/hr jobs wiping down benches left, they have all been filled with former students. Without those jobs, where will the graduate work?

What can new exercise physiologists expect to earn in their field? It is very difficult, if not impossible to locate any national data on exercise physiologists, because those jobs barely exist. Sure, I can pull up figures here and there to show certain salaries in different parts of the country, but that is not the issue. I can go to the Occupational Employment Statistics, Bureau of Labor Statistics and in an instant, pull up the national average salary for a nurse, a physical therapist, etc. Why is it that there is no information on exercise physiologists? Until someone can produce solid facts and figures on exercise physiologists earnings, we will have to use some figures that are close to the field. The closest I could find to an exercise physiologist in the Bureau of Labor Statistics is the following: Instructors and Coaches, Sports and Physical Training. They earn on average $12.68 per hour or roughly $26,380 per year (2). To show how that compares to other jobs, the national average hourly earnings in May 2000 was $13.65 ($28,392 per year) for production and non-supervisory workers on private non-farm payrolls (3).

Let’s take a look at a few other healthcare positions. I am in no way trying to simplify these greatly needed positions. I am simply using them to establish a time reference to complete their program and the amount of compensation they receive compared to the time it takes to complete a bachelor’s degree in exercise science and the expected compensation that an exercise physiologist can expect to earn.

An emergency medical technicians (EMT) average salary in 1998 was $10.75 per hour or roughly $22,360. Completion of EMT training can be finished within four weeks (4). Licensed practical nurses spends 1 year of education in their program and can expect to earn on average $13.98 per hour or roughly $28,040 per year. As expected, as you go from technical programs to 2-year associates programs, the earnings dramatically increase.

Again, as you progress from associates to the bachelors degree in healthcare fields, the average wages increase dramatically. In nearly every case in the healthcare field, as the level of education and degree status increases, so does the income. In most cases, the increase is dramatic. Unless of course, you are an exercise physiologist, because we are not considered a “true profession”. Remember, I had to close my eyes and select a field I believed to be the closest, Instructors and Physical Training, who made on average $12.68 per hour or roughly $26,380 per year. Most of the exercise physiologists that I know make nowhere near that. They would do back flips if they were offered that kind of money! All kidding aside, very few of the exercise physiologists that I know or have gone to school with work in the field at all. They simply can’t! There are either no jobs or the wages are so low they can’t afford to live. I have a friend who graduated with his masters a year after I did and was offered $26,000 a year to work with a major corporate fitness program in San Francisco. After renting a $1200 run down apartment, I can tell you he wasn’t eating very well. Then again, he was working in his field.

For simplicity, let’s use the $12.68 per hour or $26,380 per year as what an exercise physiologist makes on average. We would fall between an EMT ($ 22,360 per year, with 4 weeks of coursework) and a licensed practical nurse ($28,040 per year with 1 year of education). The majority of exercise physiologists that I know are at the master’s level and have spent on average 7 years to complete their education. Don’t forget the $50,000 price tag just for that undergraduate degree. My point is very simple: If you cannot work in a field or make a living after 7 years of formal education and you see that associate- degreed healthcare professionals are making $35,000 and $45,000 per year, who is going to go into our field?

In my opinion, this wraps up our standing in the healthcare industry. Described below is a help wanted ad taken from St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in Houston, TX.

So now go and tell your students that the 5 years they just spent earning a degree was in vain. Now it appears that hospitals are requiring simply a high school diploma for their exercise physiologists. I am sure that your graduating seniors will be thrilled to see this! What this information shows is that exercise physiologists are on the bottom of the feeding chain in the health care industry. Even a certified nurses assistant requires at least 1-week worth of training. For the exercise physiologist, a high school diploma will do. What a sad state our field is in! I do not know about you, but that makes me mad as hell.

Now on to our exercise physiologists' Real World Living: “And dreams of sugar plums danced through their heads.” Let’s take a look at what exercise physiology students on average will be paid for other living expenses. How will the new exercise physiologists get to work? Well for one, they still have that 6-month grace period on their student loans and most of the big auto manufacturers will approve loans for recent graduates, even without a job. You might as well reward yourself and get something nice, hey you’ve earned it, up until now, those were probably the 5 toughest years of your life. Let’s not get too fancy. How about an average vehicle? The Auto Affordability Index from November 17, 2000 shows the average-priced new vehicle was $21,804. Lets say our students take out a 5-year loan at a 9% interest; they can expect to pay about $ 445 per month (7). You can already see that between student loans and a car payment that exercise physiologists right out of college are in some serious trouble. But, if the students stayed in school, as many come to understand is important to financially survive, and after realizing that the average 9-month salary for a college professor is $72,700 (8), then maybe there is hope!

Where shall graduates live on the $500 or so they have left for the month to pay nearly every bill imaginable? A home is completely out of the question for exercise physiologist graduates. An apartment may be next to impossible at this point. The national average for an existing home is $177,500 and $201,100 for a new home (9). An existing home with a 30-year loan at the current 8.5% interest with property taxes, mortgage insurance (unless you had $37,000 to put down on the home), homeowners insurance, and association fees will run you somewhere in the neighborhood of $1747.30 per month or about $1931.84, if you build yourself a new home. How about the necessities like food, utilities, gas and insurance for the car, and how about medical insurance, and of course the list goes on and on. Oh yes, we shouldn't forget about the $7564 average credit card debit racked up while attending college (10).

The sad fact is exercise physiologists have no sense of themselves, no sense of a profession. We need people to step forward with a vision – a vision of creating a dynamic new profession in exercise Pphysiology. A profession that we can all be proud of. A profession in which we get the respect we have all worked so hard to achieve. A profession that will give us financial as well as career stability. A profession in which we can help educate our clients/patients on the necessity for exercise to improve the quality of their lives and prevent the debilitating diseases caused by life long, sedentary living.

Ultimately, we control our own future, and we will control the future of exercise physiology. The choice is ours. We can choose to come together unified and to be strong, or we can stand alone, divided and weak. We need as much input from the exercise physiologists in the field as we can get. We won't agree on everything and that is a good thing. However, we need to have a common goal, to promote and advance the field of exercise physiology.

The nursing profession today is BOOMING. They are commanding top salaries and earning great respect in the healthcare field. They have a strong association and are unified. Can you imagine nurses sitting back waiting for the American College of Sports Medicine to promote the profession of Nursing? Why don’t they? Plain and simple, because it is stupid and would get the nursing profession nowhere. ACSM is not a professional association. It is made up of a variety of healthcare providers interested in advancing the study of sports medicine. I have heard this statement repeated over and over by exercise physiologists, “We do not need another professional exercise physiologist association; we already have ACSM, AACVPR, etc.”

I think if I hear that statement one more time I am going to scream! So what makes the exercise physiologist so dense? I cannot figure out if it is a shear lack of common sense, or if we have been guinea pigs for the Wingate and VO₂ max tests one time too often. Anyone in our field can see that we are not cutting it. Our field is stalled and going nowhere, yet the other healthcare professions continue to flourish and continue to promote, unify, and support their profession. Exercise physiologists, on the other hand, have gone in the opposite direction. We have no unity. We have been fighting with each other for decades. As a result of this, we find ourselves lost without a profession. We call ourselves exercise physiologists, fitness specialists, fitness directors, fitness consultants, personal trainers, and a cast of other non-unified names. We need professors and department heads to come together and name our programs by its true name - Exercise Physiology. The Heinz 57 variety of exercise physiology programs throughout the country is ridiculous. How many Physical Therapy programs are called Physical Rehabilitation Science? None, because it would be asinine. Every Physical Therapy program throughout the country is called Physical Therapy and every one of the graduates are Physical Therapists. We need to have Exercise Physiology programs accredited by one governing body. We command very little power within the healthcare setting and it shows in our salaries and our career opportunities. NO MORE!!! It is time for us to choose to come together to legitimize the field Exercise Physiology that many of us are extremely proud of and have work so hard to earn a living in. We have done the research to show the tremendous effects that exercise can have on every physiological system in the body. We have research supporting the positive effects exercise has on the quality of human life. Everything is in place (except for the Exercise Physiologist) for us to claim a stake in the healthcare profession. With that said, I think you can see where I am coming from, and I will be direct about my vision of the profession of the Exercise Physiology.

So what as professors can you do? You need to have a face to face talk with your students and tell them that unless everyone in the field (including the students) begins to unite and support the professionalization, licensure, and certification there will not be any viable careers for them when they graduate. The students do listen and respect your input. Help them to develop student chapters and give them hope and promise of the career they are studying. We need to have your support. Professors can advance the professionalization of Exercise Physiology. It is simple. We have a national association in place, an association that the only goal is to support and advance the profession of the Exercise Physiologist. We need professors to support the American Society of Exercise Physiology, the only association dedicated solely to the Exercise Physiologist.

So there it is. The choice is up to us. I have been very blunt and direct in my analysis. If I have offended you, I think you should take a serious look at your department and at yourself. If this article offends you, then you are in denial about the profession and cannot see the truth or the reality of the profession today and most likely, you are one of the reasons why the field is going nowhere. This is difficult to say, and I don't say it without understanding that everyone is already up to his/her ears with work. But, there are some difficult questions that professors must ask themselves. How many of your students are finding careers in their field? What is the average income of your students after leaving your program? Are you involved in an Exercise Physiologist organization and, if so, are you promoting that association to your students? If you are not able to answer the questions above, you are part of the problem! When students see the almighty PhD professor, the ones they look to for guidance, not taking ANY stance in the professionalization of their own field, then neither will they. By looking at the state of the field today, the majority of professors are not taking an interest in the field that they are teaching and, ultimately, they are taking no interest in their students lives or careers and in my opinion they are sellouts.

The bottom line is that exercise physiology professors have immense power to direct the role of the Exercise Physiologist profession. They can either choose to stand together united and promote the field or they can continue to stand alone, divided and wallow in our self-pity because they do not have a true profession. At the same time, they can watch the other healthcare professionals begin to develop and implement Exercise Physiology into their professions as we idly sit by. The choice for me is easy. That is why I founded the Idaho Assocation of Exercise Physiologists and affiliated with the American Society of Exercise Physiologists (ASEP). ASEP has everything in place to move our profession to the forefront of the healthcare field. We need the support of the Exercise Physiologists. We cannot do this on our own. We need the help and support of every Exercise Physiologist in the country to make Exercise Physiology a true profession. You do have a voice. Stand up and use it! Be direct and honest about what you feel and don’t let anyone stand in the way of your dreams and goals. Together, we can make our visions and dreams a reality. I for one am here to stay and make a difference in our field. Will you join me?

REFERENCES
1. Annual Survey of Colleges, Trends in College Pricing, 1999-00 by The College Board. (1999). New York, NY: The College Board. Retrieved November 6, 2000 from the World Wide Web: http://www.collegeboard.org

2. Occupational Employment Statistics, Bureau of Labor Statistics. 1998 National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates. (1998). Retrieved October 25, 2000 from the World Wide Web: http://stats.bls.gov/oes/national/oes_prof.htm#b31000

5. 1998 National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates Professional, Paraprofessional, and Technical Occupations. Occupational Employment Statistics, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved December 16, 2000 from World Wide Web: http://stats.bls.gov/oes/national/oes_prof.htm

8. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2000-2001 edition. College and University Faculty. Retrieved November 25, 2000 From the World Wide Web: http://stats.bls.gov/oco/ocos066.htm