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Statistics: Massage Schools

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Statistics: Massage Schools

Massage training in the USA

Number of massage therapy training programs, 2011: 1,440
Number of massage therapy training programs, 2009: 1,568
New graduates, 2011: 48,271
New graduates, 2009: 54,246
Average number of students per program, 2011: 35
Average number of students per program, 2009: 38

Where do massage therapists train?
ABMP organizes schools into 5 categories when gathering and analyzing data for its biennial school census.

Career training institutions: multi-program institutions offering many career training programs in addition to massage therapy (typically medical and dental assisting, medical record-keeping, etc.). Nearly all are accredited by U.S. Department of Education-recognized accrediting agencies, and are either privately-held or publicly-traded.
Colleges: massage programs offered at state-run community or technical colleges. Regionally accredited.
Corporate Massage Schools: institutions offering massage therapy and spa programs, typically multi-campus, multi-state. Nearly all are accredited by U.S. Department of Education-recognized accrediting agencies. Each campus is counted as a distinct program.
Proprietary Schools: institutions offering massage therapy (and sometimes also spa) programs. Typically single campus, single owner. Approximately 24% of these programs are currently accredited by U.S. Department of Education-recognized accrediting agencies.
Public Schools: massage program offered at a regionally accredited institution that is part of the local public school system.

Current number of training programs, by school category

Career Training Institutions: 407
Colleges: 200
Corporate Massage Schools: 62
Proprietary Schools: 750
Public Schools: 21

Average number of students per program, by school category

Career Training Institutions: 38
Colleges: 26
Corporate Massage Schools: 115
Proprietary Schools: 29
Public Schools: 21

Distribution of graduates, by school category

Two categories stand out for having a larger market share than their program count would indicate. Corporate massage schools graduate 14% of all students, despite only representing 4% of all programs. Accredited proprietary schools graduate 17% of all students, despite representing only 10% of all programs. The converse exists for non-accredited proprietary schools and colleges—both graduate a smaller proportion than their program count represents. This shows the significance of accreditation status.

Financial aid
In four of the five school categories identified, access to federal (Title IV) financial aid is nearly automatic. All programs at corporate massage schools, colleges, and public schools are Title IV-eligible, and so are all but a handful of programs at career training institutions.

A significant segment of non-Title IV programs populate the Proprietary school category. Of the 750 programs in this category, only 143 (23.6%) of programs are accredited and Title IV-eligible. The survey gives insight to the difference accreditation and Title IV funding can make in a school’s enrollment profile. Accredited programs on average graduate more than twice as many students as their non-accredited colleagues.

Historic trends
After explosive growth of 107.7% from 1998 to 2004, student enrollment and graduation numbers began to level off. The rate of growth slowed to 7.8% between 2004 and 2006, and slowed further to 2.5% from 2006 to 2008. ABMP’s school database peaked in 2006 at 1,582 schools. A dramatic trend during this growth period was the variety and number of new schools springing up, as well as established schools that began offering massage therapy programs for the first time.

In 2011, numbers of training programs and students declined for the first time. The number of training programs decreased 10% since 2008, and the number of graduates decreased 11%. Enrollments decreased 16.2% from 2009 to 2011.

The number of graduates from massage therapy programs in 2010 dipped below 50,000 for the first time in 10 years. However, the last time fewer than 50,000 students graduated from massage therapy programs in a year, there were 600 fewer schools.

The number of career training institutions declined 8% since 2008, while the number of proprietary schools declined almost 11% during the period.

ABMP considers this a continuing market correction as the profession settles into more natural numbers.

What does the future hold?
While it is dangerous to derive “universal truths” from such aggregate data, the trends are attention-getting:

Of the many career training institutions that flooded to add massage therapy program offerings around 2005, more than 40 proved to lack deep commitment or staying power.
While community colleges weren’t immune from attrition, the desire for additional program offerings at many colleges spurred overall category growth in the past two years.
Small, non-accredited proprietary schools with limited marketing budgets have found it challenging to find students who can afford tuition.
More school attrition appears likely. Many schools with fewer than 20 students (40% of all programs) may find they simply do not have a cushion that will enable them to survive uneven economic times.

How many students and graduates overall would be healthy for the massage profession? Did the boom years leave a glut of educated massage therapists who have been unable to sustain an economically viable career—meaning a continued decline in the number of graduates will help the market stabilize and help those remaining find sustainable work?

Eventually, as economist Adam Smith preached, the marketplace will find its equilibrium—demand and supply will match. ABMP’s professional challenge is to keep educating the public about the value of massage therapy, to help massage therapists attract and keep more customers, and keep that equilibrium point as high as possible. The 2011 ABMP school census suggests that considerable school capacity exists to meet such demand.

Download a PDF of the statistics on this page, with charts and other information.

Methodology: Since 1999, ABMP has contacted every massage and bodywork program in its database every two years to gauge the enrollment health of the school universe. Programs are contacted via email and telephone in January and February to secure participation, with multiple attempts at contact made to each school. The 2011 census included answers from 75% of recognized massage programs in the United States. Estimates for the remainder of programs were constructed based on prior participation, program type, and trend data from the programs that did respond.

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