2023 Best Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies Doctor’s Degree Colleges for Veterans in Tennessee

When it comes to choosing a college, veterans have a lot of options - but not all of them are good. One of our goals at College Factual is to give you as much information as we can - such as our “Most Veteran Friendly in Tennessee for Parks & Rec for a Doctorate” ranking - to help you make that decision.

Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies is the 15th most popular major in the country with 73,813 degrees awarded in 2020-2021. In 2019-2020, parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies graduates who were awarded their degree in 2017-2019, earned an average of $31,423 and had an average of $24,388 in loans still to pay off.

Across Tennessee, there were 2,462 parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies graduates with average earnings and debt of $30,291 and $24,746 respectively.

This year’s “Most Veteran Friendly in Tennessee for Parks & Rec for a Doctorate” ranking analyzed 2 colleges that offered a degree in parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies. The schools that top this list are recognized because they have great parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies programs and a strong support system for veterans and active service members.

To come up with these rankings, we looked at factors such as veteran satisfaction, veteran affordability, and overall quality of the parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies program at the school. Check out our ranking methodology for more information.

One Size Does Not Fit All

When choosing the right school for you, it’s important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we’ve created a number of major-specific rankings, including this “Most Veteran Friendly in Tennessee for Parks & Rec for a Doctorate” list to help you make the college decision.

You can create your own custom comparison that focuses on the factors most important to you using our tool, College Combat. Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.

Most Veteran Friendly in Tennessee for Parks & Rec for a Doctorate

The colleges and universities below are the best for tennessee doctor’s degree vets studying parks & rec.

Top 2 Best Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies Doctor’s Degree Colleges for Veterans in Tennessee

1

The University of Tennessee - Knoxville
Knoxville, Tennessee

1,122 GI Bill® Students**

#1 in overall quality

YES Student Veterans Organization

You’ll be in good company if you decide to attend The University of Tennessee - Knoxville. It ranked #1 on our 2023 Most Veteran Friendly in Tennessee for Parks & Rec for a Doctorate list. Located in Knoxville, Tennessee, this large public school handed out 7 degrees to qualified doctorate’s parks and rec students in 2020-2021.

UT Knoxville also made our “Best Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies Doctor’s Degree Schools in Tennessee” list, coming in at #1.According to our most recent data, UT Knoxville supports 30,559 students, and 1,122 of those are GI Bill® students, of which 739 are Post-9/11 GI Bill® recipients. The average Post-9/11 GI Bill® award for tuition and fees at the school was $10,650. To help with additional expenses, 8 students received funds through the Yellow Ribbon Program. Eligible students may be able to receive credit for their military training.

Students who start out at the school are likely to stick around. The freshman retention rate is 89%. The school has an impressive undergrad student loan default rate. It’s only [DEFAULT_RATE_STRING]%, which is much lower than the national rate of 10.1%.

Full UT Knoxville Veteran Student Life Report

2

East Tennessee State University
Johnson City, Tennessee

6 GI Bill® Students**

#2 in overall quality

YES Student Veterans Organization

Out of the 2 schools in the Most Veteran Friendly in Tennessee for Parks & Rec for a Doctorate that were part of this year’s ranking, East Tennessee State University landed the #2 spot on the list. This fairly large school is located in Johnson City, Tennessee, and it awarded 5 doctorate’s parks and rec degrees in 2020-2021.

ETSU not only placed well in this ranking. It is also #2 on our “Best Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies Doctor’s Degree Schools in Tennessee” list.Our most recent data shows that 6 of the 13,713 students enrolled at ETSU were GI Bill® students, of which 3 were Post-9/11 GI Bill® recipients. The average Post-9/11 GI Bill® award for tuition and fees at the school was $25,115. On top of their other funding sources, 0 students qualified for the Yellow Ribbon Program. Eligible students may be able to receive credit for their military training.

Read More…

• Best Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies Doctor’s Degree Colleges for Veterans in the Southeast Region
• Best Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies Doctor’s Degree Colleges for Veterans

Notes and References

References

• The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of our data about colleges.
• Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
• Veteran-specific data can be found at the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.
• Information about the national average student loan default rate is from the U.S. Department of Education and refers to data about the 2016 borrower cohort tracking period for which the cohort default rate (CDR) was 10.1%.

Read more about our data sources and methodologies

Footnotes

• *Avg Salary and Avg 4-Year Grad Rate are for the top schools only.
• **GI Bill® student total includes all chapters of the GI Bill® program (e.g., Post-9/11, Montgomery GI Bill, Reserve Education Assistance Program, and Veteran Readiness and Employment)
• Some schools otherwise deserving of recognition may have been removed from this ranking in the event that new data identified post-publication warranted it, or at the request of the school.

Credits

• Credit for the banner image above goes to NPS Photo/Zurbuch.