Northampton County Area Community College Nursing (ADN): Tuition, Graduate Salary, and Debt

How it compares

Each figure is the median for graduates of the program. The Pennsylvania and national columns are the medians across all nursing associate's programs that report the figure.

Five years out, Northampton County Area Community College graduates earn about the national figure and about the same as the Pennsylvania median.

Debt and first-year pay at every Pennsylvania nursing program

Programs in the upper left give graduates higher pay for less debt. Dashed lines mark the Pennsylvania medians.

Hover over or tap a dot to see the school. Only programs that report both earnings and debt are shown.

What graduates earn over time

Pay rises about 3% between the first and fifth year. Registered nurses in Pennsylvania earn a median of $96,430 across all experience levels, which shows how much room there is to grow after the first few years.

Year 1 and year 5 figures come from different graduating classes, so the growth rate is an estimate. BLS figures cover registered nurses at every experience level.

Does family income change the outcome?

Graduates who received Pell Grants, which go to students from lower-income families, earned $11,581 less in their first year than other graduates. They also borrowed more. Students who expect to rely on grants should weigh this gap.

Paying back the loans

On a standard 10-year plan, the median debt means a payment of about $276 a month, or 4.5% of a graduate's typical monthly pay in the first year.

The government publishes these as ranges to protect privacy. They were measured in 2018 to 2020, partly during the pandemic pause on federal loan payments, so the forbearance share may be higher than usual. Separately, 22 parents took out Parent PLUS loans for these students, with a median of $10,823.

Where graduates work, and what the pay is worth

92% of graduates (98 of 106) were working in Pennsylvania one year after graduating. Prices in the Allentown area are about the same as the national average.

The median Pennsylvania RN earns $96,430, compared with a national median of $97,550. After adjusting for Pennsylvania prices, that pay is worth about $98,830, which puts Pennsylvania slightly ahead.

Careers this field leads to

These are the jobs that the federal crosswalk from fields of study to occupations links to nursing, largest first. Pay is the median across all experience levels.

About Northampton County Area Community College

Nursing ranks 1st of 17 associate's programs at Northampton County Area Community College by first-year earnings. The top three are Nursing ($73,236), Diagnostic and Treatment Professions ($54,892), and Dental Hygiene and Assisting ($50,692).

Other nursing associate's programs near Bethlehem

Common questions

About this data

• Earnings and debt only include students who received federal financial aid (grants or loans).
• Earnings only count graduates who were working and not enrolled in more school. Graduates who went straight to further study are not included.
• Debt only includes federal loans. Private loans and credit cards are not counted.
• Some schools with several campuses report one combined figure for all of them. We count each of those schools once, and leave them out of Pennsylvania comparisons when their main campus is in another state.
• Scorecard figures describe graduating classes from several years ago. BLS wages are from May 2025.
• School-level numbers like tuition, admission rate, and graduation rate are for the whole school, not the nursing program.

Sources

1. U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard, field of study and institution files, June 2026 release
2. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025
3. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections 2025 to 2035
4. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities, 2024
5. NCES, CIP 2020 to SOC 2018 crosswalk, and IPEDS institution directory, 2024

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