It's back-to-school season, which means it's also the season for one of the most-searched financial questions in America: is a college degree actually worth it?
For a growing number of people, there's a more useful question underneath that one: is there training that counts as college credit—real, transferable progress toward a degree—without requiring a four-year commitment and a six-figure price tag before you're sure? As it turns out, yes.
If you've watched a family member weigh a financial aid offer, or you're turning that question over yourself, the stakes are real. College costs more than it used to, and the return on that investment looks different than it did even a decade ago.
Key Takeaways:
For the 2025–2026 school year, the average published tuition and fees for a four-year private nonprofit college is $45,000. Public four-year, in-state tuition averages just under $12,000—and that's before housing, food, books, and other costs, which push the full cost of attendance closer to $31,000 a year at public schools and $65,000 at private ones.
Many families cover part of that with grants and financial aid, but plenty still borrow to close the gap. Total U.S. student loan debt reached $1.66 trillion in the first quarter of 2026, and delinquency rates are climbing now that pandemic-era payment pauses are fully behind us: 10.3% of student loan balances were 90 or more days past due last quarter, up from 9.6% the quarter before.
Here's where it gets genuinely complicated—and where a lot of headlines oversimplify. On paper, a bachelor's degree still pays off: workers with a four-year degree earn about 70% more over their careers than those with only a high school diploma, according to Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce. That's a real, well-documented premium, and it holds across most fields.
At the same time, the transition from “in school” to “in a job that actually uses that degree” is bumpier than it used to be. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reports that 41.5% of recent college graduates are underemployed—working in jobs that don't require a college degree—as of early 2026, and unemployment among recent grads (5.7%) is running higher than the overall labor market.
Put those two facts side by side, and the honest answer is: it depends. A degree is still a strong long-term bet for many people and many fields. It's also a slower, pricier, and less certain path than it was a generation ago—and it's reasonable to want a plan B, or a plan A that doesn't require betting four years and tens of thousands of dollars before you know if it's the right fit.
If you're on the fence, you don't have to resolve the whole question today. You can build real, marketable skills now, in a fraction of the time and cost of a traditional degree, and still leave the door open to a degree later if that's where you land.
IIN’s The Health Coach Training Program™ is worth a look here, especially if wellness, nutrition, or helping people build better habits is the thing pulling at you. It's a fully online, 40-module program you can complete in 6 or 12 months—a fraction of the time of a traditional degree. Continuing on through the Coaching Intensive Practicum to become eligible for board certification adds only an additional 3 months.
And because IIN is a recommended provider through the National College Credit Recommendation Service (NCCRS), which partners with more than 1,300 colleges and universities across the U.S. and Canada, graduating from the Health Coach Training Program can be worth up to 29 college credit equivalencies toward a bachelor's, master's, or even doctoral degree—if and when you decide to pursue one, wherever you end up enrolling.
At IIN's direct university partners, the credit totals can run even higher. Excelsior University accepts up to 40 IIN credits toward certain bachelor's degree programs, plus discounted tuition for IIN graduates. Saybrook University's College of Integrative Medicine and Health Sciences accepts 6 academic semester credits toward its master's and PhD programs. Maryland University of Integrative Health offers advanced standing toward two graduate degrees. And the California Institute of Integral Studies accepts 6 graduate credits toward its M.A. in Integrative Health Studies. You can see the full list of degree and credit partnerships on IIN's accreditation page.
In other words: this isn't a choice between “go to college” and “skip it forever.” It's a way to start now, build a career you're genuinely excited about, and bank progress toward a degree in the process—so if you do want that degree down the road, you're not starting from zero.
This works even more in your favor if you've already started a degree and stopped. Roughly 43.1 million Americans currently have some college credit but no credential—maybe from a pause for financial reasons, a life change, or just losing momentum.
Credit earned through The Health Coach Training Program via NCCRS or IIN's university partners can often sit alongside the credit you already have, rather than replacing it. That means if you eventually go back to finish a degree, you're not starting over—you're combining two tracks of progress instead of picking just one.
2025 IIN graduate Aubree Mitchell had originally planned on medical school before she found a faster and more affordable way to build the career she actually wanted. “I discovered I didn't need medical school to pursue my passion—I needed the right education to turn it into a career,” she says. “I could lean in without having to go $250k in debt with medical school. So, I found IIN, wrote my business plan, and the rest is history.”
Not everyone is choosing between IIN and medical school specifically—but Aubree's story points to a bigger pattern: people who wanted meaningful work looked hard at the cost, timeline, and certainty of their options before choosing a path, rather than assuming there was only one “right” route.
Curious whether a degree is really the next right step for you? Read What Degree Do You Need to Be a Health Coach? to see how much (or how little) formal education this path actually requires, or check out 10 Reasons to Enroll in The Health Coach Training Program for a closer look at what the program covers.
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[1] College Board. “Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid 2025.”
[2] Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, 2026:Q1.”
[3] Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “The Labor Market for Recent College Graduates, 2026:Q1.”
[4] Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. “The College Payoff.” 2025.
[5] Institute for Integrative Nutrition. “Accreditations & Partnerships.”
[6] National College Credit Recommendation Service (NCCRS). “Institute for Integrative Nutrition.”
[7] National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. “Some College, No Credential: Student Outcomes, 2025 Report.”