Cheapest Pharmacy Schools in America
It pays to get your PharmD from the cheapest pharmacy school you can find. As a pharmacist, the number one thing that keeps me up at night is the balance of my student loan.
As an aspiring pharmacist, you can make this one decision that can affect your financial well-being many years down the road.
You can choose to go to an affordable pharmacy school. I know everyone is obsessed with pharmacy school rankings, myself included. If you didn’t want to get into top-notch residency or academia, in my opinion, it does not matter where you got your PharmD from.
4 Types of Pharmacy Schools
The student loan planner laid out our choices for pharmacy schools for us.
Clients of the student loan planner average $215,000 of student debt. However, according to the same article, you can owe as low as $120,000 and as high as $300,000 depending on the type of schools you attended, whether public or private schools respectively.
The article broke it down to four different categories that a pharmacy school can belong to.
- Best value: In-state, low-cost pharmacy schools, i.e. University of Texas at El Paso: $118.296 cost of attendance
- Tolerable: In-state, modest-cost pharmacy schools, i.e. University of Florida: $167,160
- Same education, more money: Out-of-state public pharmacy school: cost of attendance ranges from $200,000 to $260,000
- Private pharmacy schools: Total cost of attendance ranges from $220,000 to $350,000, i.e., LECOM Bradenton $222,542
The student loan hero compiled a list of the most affordable pharmacy schools based on tuition and mandatory fees. They relied on data from AACP and it’s from 2017.
Pharmacist Report has a similar list with added insights from practicing pharmacist worth taking a look at here.
Cheapest Texas pharmacy school in 2021
Since the data for Texas referenced above is from 2017, I am updating the ranking with the 2020-21 Tuition and Fees Chart from AACP.
- Texas A&M University College of Pharmacy
- In-state tuition-$9,108
- Out-of-state tuition-$42,912
- Mandatory Fees-$7,185
2. University of North Texas College of Pharmacy
- In-state tuition-$14,480
- Out-of-state tuition-$31,360
- Mandatory Fees-$9,422
3. Texas Southern University College of Pharmacy
- In-state tuition-$14,557
- Out-of-state tuition-$24,861
- Mandatory Fees-$1,736
4. Texas Tech College of Pharmacy
- In-state tuition-$14,742
- Out-of-state tuition-$28,743
- Mandatory Fees-$3,848
5. University of Texas at El Paso College of Pharmacy
- In-state tuition-$15,156
- Out-of-state tuition-$35,654
- Mandatory Fees-$3,060
6. University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy
- In-state tuition-$21,548
- Out-of-state tuition-$49,240
- Mandatory Fees-$0
7. University of Houston College of Pharmacy
- In-state tuition-$24,318
- Out-of-state tuition-$43,660
- Mandatory Fees-1,516
8. University of Texas at Tyler College of Pharmacy
- In-state tuition-$34,856
- Out-of-state tuition-$34,856
- Mandatory Fees-$0
9. Incarnate Word School of Pharmacy
- In-state tuition-$38,000
- Out-of-state tuition-$38,000
- Mandatory Fees-$2,144
Cheapest pharmacy school in Texas in 2017
| No. | Pharmacy School | In-State Tuition and Fees |
| 1. | Texas A&M University | $13,430 |
| 2. | Texas Tech University | $15,939 |
| 3. | University of Texas at Austin | $16,794 |
| 4. | Texas Southern University | $17,203 |
| 5. | University of North Texas | $19,167 |
| 6. | University of Houston | $19,644 |
Cheapest pharmacy school in Texas in 2021
| No. | Pharmacy School | In-State Tuition and Fees |
| 1. | Texas A&M University | $16,293 |
| 2. | Texas Southern University | $16,293 |
| 3. | University of Texas at El Paso | $18,216 |
| 4. | Texas Tech University | $18,590 |
| 5. | University of Texas at Austin | $21,548 |
| 6. | University of North Texas | $23,902 |
| 7. | University of Houston | $25,834 |
| 8. | University of Texas at Tyler | $34,856 |
| 9. | University of the Incarnate Word | $40,144 |
Top 10 cheapest pharmacy schools in 2017
| No. | Pharmacy School | In-State Tuition and Fees |
| 1. | Florida A&M University | $5,191 |
| 2. | University of Montana | $11,683 |
| 3. | Texas A&M University | $13,430 |
| 4. | University of Connecticut | $14,880 |
| 5. | Texas Tech University | $15,939 |
| 6. | University of Wyoming | $15,957 |
| 7. | University of Texas at Austin | $16,794 |
| 8. | Rutgers University | $17,124 |
| 9. | Texas Southern University | $17,203 |
| 10. | University of Toledo | $17,364 |
Top 10 cheapest pharmacy schools in 2021
| No. | Pharmacy School | In-State Tuition and Fees |
| 1. | Florida A&M University | $5,464 |
| 2. | University of Montana | $13,711 |
| 3. | Texas A&M University | $16,293 |
| 4. | Texas Southern University | $17,203 |
| 5. | University of Toledo | $18,507 |
| 6. | Texas Tech University | $18,590 |
| 7. | University of Wyoming | $18,697 |
| 8. | Rutgers University | $18,940 |
| 9. | University of Connecticut | $20,396 |
| 10. | University of Texas at Austin | $21,548 |
Takeaways
Choosing a pharmacy school is an important decision that can affect your future financial health. As you can see from the charts above, these public in-state pharmacy schools offer the best bang for the buck and most of these schools are reputable.
If you’re looking for prestige, would you pick the University of Incarnate Word Pharmacy school over Texas A&M? The former has the most expensive tuition in Texas and the latter has the cheapest tuition in Texas.
In my opinion, you will haven’t gotten a very similar education experience at a fraction of the cost of attendance. Keep in my we’re just looking at in-state tuition plus mandatory fees, we haven’t accounted for other expenses such as housing, food, and other costs.
In fact, both Bankrate and Nerdwallet cited that pharmacists owe an average of $179,514 upon graduation in 2020. That is an increase from $149,320 in 2015.
If you have choices, I’d recommend you to make the decision to attend an in-state public pharmacy school. Of course, you can take into consideration the location of the school, the environment, the quality of the education, rankings, and whatnot.
Make sure to keep in mind how much money you’re borrowing and how long it will take to pay it off. With that note, if a private pharmacy school is your only option then play the card you’re dealt with and come up with a plan to quickly pay off your student loan debts upon graduation.