Test hearing and balance, then fit the devices that give it back. A four-year clinical doctorate, and a job in every town.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Typical
$95,780
New graduate
$64,610
Practice owner or senior hospital
$133,120
The national median is $95,780 a year, and the bottom tenth start near $64,610. Pay is highest in private practice and in hospitals, and lowest in schools, where the calendar is shorter.
$25,000 to $40,000
The full-time clinical externship year, usually paid
The final year of a Doctor of Audiology program is a year of supervised full-time clinical work. Most sites pay a stipend, though it is well below a real salary and you are usually still paying tuition.
$133,120 a year
Owners of private audiology practices and senior hospital audiologists
Owning the practice is what lifts the number, because hearing aid sales run through it. Employed audiologists in hospitals and clinics cluster nearer the median.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a cheap bachelor's degree, community college credits then an in-state public university, followed by a four year Doctor of Audiology at in-state public prices. The high end is four years of undergraduate tuition at the top of the in-state range plus a doctorate at around $35,000 a year. Graduating with $100,000 or more of federal student loans is common here, and the final year of the doctorate is a clinical placement that pays little or nothing. Working for a nonprofit hospital, a school district or a government clinic puts you on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness track, which cancels the remaining balance after ten years of qualifying payments.
Graduating with $100,000 or more of federal student loans is common here. If you work for a nonprofit hospital, a school district or a government clinic, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program can wipe the remaining balance after ten years of qualifying payments.
Private audiology practices
Hearing tests and hearing aids, with a mix of clinical and sales work.
Hospitals and ear nose and throat clinics
Diagnostics, balance testing and cochlear implant programs.
Schools
Educational audiologists work with deaf and hard of hearing students across a district.
Veterans hospitals
One of the largest single employers of audiologists in the country, because hearing loss is a common service injury.
Industry
Hearing aid and implant manufacturers hire audiologists for research, training and support.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Four years of undergraduate, then a four-year clinical doctorate. There is no shorter route.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Biology, physics and any speech or psychology course. Sound is physics, and the ear is biology.
Bachelor's degree
4 years
Communication sciences and disorders is the usual major, but the doctorate accepts any bachelor's degree if you cover the prerequisite courses.
Doctor of Audiology
4 years
Four years at a program accredited by the Council on Academic Accreditation in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology. Classes and clinic from the first year.
Clinical externship year
12 months
The fourth year is full-time supervised practice at a hospital, clinic or veterans center.
Exam, license and certification
Final months
Pass the Praxis Examination in Audiology, get your state license, and optionally add the Certificate of Clinical Competence in Audiology.
Biology
Anatomy of the ear and the nerve pathways behind it.
Physics
Hearing is acoustics. Waves, frequency and amplitude show up every day.
Statistics
You read test results and research papers constantly.
American Sign Language or a second language
Directly useful with deaf patients and with families who do not speak English.
You need a state license to practice audiology anywhere in the United States, and every state issues one. The national standard behind it comes from ASHA (the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association), whose Certificate of Clinical Competence in Audiology requires a doctoral degree from an accredited program, supervised clinical experience, and a passing score on the Praxis Examination in Audiology. The American Board of Audiology offers a separate voluntary certification. States differ on whether you also need a hearing aid dispensing license, so check your state board.
Public university health science campuses
Most states have one accredited Doctor of Audiology program, and in-state tuition is by far the cheapest route.
Programs with veterans hospital placements
A clinical year at a veterans hospital is excellent training and a common route into a federal job.
Combined bachelor's and doctorate tracks
A few schools let you move straight from their undergraduate program into the doctorate without reapplying.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Cochlear implants
Programming implants for children and adults. Hospital based and highly skilled.
Vestibular and balance testing
Diagnosing dizziness. A growing area as the population ages.
Pediatric audiology
Testing babies who cannot tell you what they hear. Technical and patient work at the same time.
Tinnitus management
Ringing in the ears has no cure, and people will travel a long way for someone who can help them live with it.
Industrial hearing conservation
Testing and protecting workers on noisy sites, often on contract.
Retail or sales experience
Unglamorous, and it matters. A large part of private practice is helping someone decide to spend thousands of dollars.
Patience with older people
Most of your patients will be over 65 and many will be frustrated and tired.
A little electronics knowledge
You will troubleshoot tiny devices all day.
Volunteer hours in a clinic
Doctoral programs look for applicants who have seen the work up close.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Back to back appointments, most of them an hour. A hearing test in a soundproof booth, then explaining the results to someone who has been quietly avoiding this for five years. Fitting and fine tuning hearing aids, cleaning and repairing them, and reprogramming the ones that never sounded right. A balance test or two. A baby referred from newborn screening, tested while asleep. Paperwork and insurance claims between patients. Very little emergency, a lot of steady clinical problem solving.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders estimates about 28.8 million American adults could benefit from hearing aids, but among people over 70 who could benefit, only about 30 percent have ever used one. Persuading people is a real part of the job.
Newborn hearing screening is routine across the United States, and about 2 to 3 of every 1,000 babies are born with detectable hearing loss in one or both ears. Catching it in the first months changes how a child learns to speak.
Roughly 5 percent of adults aged 45 to 54 have disabling hearing loss. By age 75 and over it is about 55 percent. That curve is why this career keeps growing.
Since 2022 the Food and Drug Administration has allowed hearing aids for mild to moderate loss to be sold directly to adults without a prescription. It changed the low end of the market, and pushed audiologists toward the complex cases that a shelf product cannot fix.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise.