A few months of training to a job with about 196,200 openings a year. Hard, physical, human work, and the pay is modest.
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The median pay is about $42,260 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $33,940 at the lower end to about $51,980 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
Up to 1 year after high school, on the usual route.
$300 to $2,500 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
Yes. It is a regulated job, so you need a license or registration before you can work.
Good demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$42,260
Bottom tenth
$33,940
Top tenth
$51,980
The national median is $42,260 a year, the bottom tenth earn $33,940 or less and the top tenth $51,980 or more, in the 2025 federal wage survey line for nursing assistants, the one that names the certified nursing assistant title. A separate and lower line covers home health and personal care aides, who do similar work in people's homes without the nursing certificate, and their median is $35,800.
$37,260 a year, $17.91 an hour
25% of nursing assistants earn this or less, 2025
This covers everyone in the job, not only beginners, because the survey publishes no separate starting figure.
Time and a half
Federal law's overtime rate for hours over 40 in a week
Care does not stop at 5pm. Many employers also add extra pay for overnight and weekend shifts. The survey figures above leave out overtime.
Roughly, all in
$300 to $2,500
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
This is one of the cheapest entries to a real job in the country. The low end is a nursing home that trains you, pays you while you learn and covers the course in exchange for you staying a while, leaving you to pay only the state competency exam at around $100 to $150, the background check and health screening under $100, and your own scrubs and shoes. The high end is paying for the training yourself at a community college or a Red Cross style program, commonly $600 to $2,000, plus the same exam and kit. Worth asking every local nursing home whether they pay for training, because many do.
Fill out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) if you go through a community college, and ask every local nursing home whether they pay for training, because many do.
Tuition help toward nursing
Hospitals commonly pay toward a nursing degree for assistants who want to go further.
Hospital benefits
Full-time hospital roles come with health coverage, retirement contributions and paid time off.
Union representation
Many in this workforce are unionized, especially in hospitals and in state run facilities.
Work anywhere, any hours
Every town has somewhere that needs you, and shifts exist around school, childcare or a second job.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
You can be working within a few months of finishing high school.
High school diploma or GED (General Educational Development certificate)
Grades 11 and 12
Most programs want one. Some accept you at 16 or 17 with parental consent.
State approved training program
4 to 16 weeks
Classroom plus supervised clinical hours in a real facility. Offered by community colleges, nursing homes, the Red Cross and some high schools.
Competency exam
1 day
A written test and a skills test where an examiner watches you do things like transferring a patient safely.
State registry
Weeks
You go on your state's nurse aide registry. Employers check it, and that listing is what makes you certified.
First job
Ongoing
Usually a nursing home, sometimes a hospital. You look after a group of residents each shift, and the number depends on the home and the shift.
Biology
Basic anatomy makes the training much easier and makes nursing school later possible.
Health or first aid
Anything that gets you CPR certified and comfortable around bodies.
English
You chart everything you observe. A missed note is how a change in someone's condition gets missed.
A second language
Especially Spanish. Many of the people you look after will be more comfortable in it.
Few healthcare jobs get you working this fast for this little money up front.
To work in a nursing home that takes Medicare or Medicaid money you must complete a state approved training program, pass a competency evaluation and be listed on your state's nurse aide registry. Those requirements come from federal rules that every such facility has to follow: at least 75 hours of training, 16 of them supervised hands-on practice, and each state can require more. There is no single national certificate: move to another state and you apply to transfer onto their registry. Some states run the registry through the health department and others through the board of nursing. Either way, your registry listing is what your employer checks.
Community colleges
Short certificate programs, cheap in-state, and they connect to nursing degrees at the same school.
Nursing homes
Many run their own state approved course and pay you through it. Ask directly, the ads do not always mention it.
Red Cross and similar providers
Structured programs in most cities, usually a few weeks long.
High school health programs
Some districts let you finish the training before you graduate, so you can start work immediately.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Patient care technician
Extra training in drawing blood and running basic tests. Hospitals look for it.
Medication aide
Available in many states. You give routine medications under nurse supervision.
Restorative or rehabilitation aide
Working with physical therapy on people relearning to walk. Steadier and less frantic.
Dementia care training
Specialized units need it, because the work is harder and staff leave quickly.
Physical strength and good body mechanics
You will lift and turn adults many times a shift. Bad technique ends careers with back injuries.
A strong stomach
This job involves bodily fluids every single day. Nobody gets used to it, they just get used to not reacting.
Real patience
Dementia means answering the same question forty times. The good aides do it kindly every time.
A driver's license
Home care and agency work both need one.
Many registered nurses in this country started here. You get certified in a few months, work while you study, and your employer often pays part of the tuition. Two years in, you can be a licensed practical nurse; four or five years in, a registered nurse, a job with a national median of $97,550 a year. Treating this as a first rung rather than a destination is the difference between a career and a job you burn out of. Say it out loud at interviews: employers who want to keep good people are usually glad to help.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Report at 7am and take handover on ten residents. Then it is washing, dressing, toileting and breakfast, moving fast because ten people all need you at eight o'clock. Mid morning you take vital signs and chart them. Someone falls and you are the first there. Lunch, more changing, more lifting, a family who wants to know why their mother seems quieter today. You are the person who notices that, and you tell the nurse. By 3pm your feet hurt and somebody has thanked you and somebody else has shouted at you.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The federal occupation database gives this job a Bright Outlook because of its openings: about 196,200 a year projected from 2025 to 2035, with average growth in total jobs.
Under federal nursing home rules, if you go 24 months in a row without being paid for nursing work, you must pass a new competency evaluation, and in some cases redo the training, before a nursing home can employ you again.
The government counts nursing assistants and personal care aides separately. The work overlaps, but the certified nursing assistant line has a median $6,460 a year higher. Read the job title on an advertisement carefully.
Federal rules require nursing homes to give each nurse aide at least 12 hours of in-service training a year, including dementia care and abuse prevention.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Nursing and patient care first, then the rest of the field. See every career in health.
Last checked October 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. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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