Month: October 2026

Every time a patient struggles to breathe, after a heart attack, a premature birth, a severe asthma flare, or a bout of pneumonia, a respiratory therapist is usually one of the first clinicians at the bedside. It’s a career built on a simple, urgent skill: helping people breathe. And right now, hospitals, sleep labs, rehabilitation centers, and home care agencies across the country can’t train and hire respiratory therapists (RTs) fast enough.

If you’re exploring a hands-on healthcare career with real staying power, respiratory therapy deserves a close look, and so does the question of where you earn your degree.

A field that’s growing faster than most

Respiratory therapy isn’t a niche specialty anymore, it’s one of the more dependable growth paths in allied health. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment for respiratory therapists to grow about 12–13% over the coming decade, far outpacing average job growth, with roughly 8,800 to 10,300 openings expected each year as the field expands and experienced therapists retire or move on.

A few forces are driving that demand:

• An aging population. Older adults are more likely to develop chronic conditions like COPD, pneumonia, and other cardiopulmonary diseases that require ongoing respiratory care.
• Advancing medical technology. Ventilators, diagnostic equipment, and home-care devices are more sophisticated than ever, and someone has to operate, monitor, and teach patients to use them.
• Expanding care settings. RTs are no longer confined to hospital ICUs, they now work in sleep labs, outpatient pulmonary clinics, skilled nursing facilities, home healthcare, and emergency transport.

Compensation reflects that demand. The median annual wage for respiratory therapists was around $80,000 as of the most recent BLS data, with experienced therapists in critical care, charge-therapist, or supervisory roles often earning more. Career paths can lead from staff therapist to charge therapist, department supervisor, or director of respiratory care, or into specialized tracks like neonatal/pediatric care, critical care, or sleep medicine.

What it actually takes to become an RT

Unlike many growing healthcare roles, respiratory therapy has a clear, well-defined path in, but it’s a real credentialing process, not a weekend certificate:

1. Earn an accredited associate degree. The entry-level credential for RTs is an Associate in Applied Science (A.A.S.) in Respiratory Therapy, and it must come from a program accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Respiratory Care (CoARC). This accreditation isn’t optional, graduating from a non-accredited program can block you from sitting for licensure exams entirely.
2. Pass the Therapist Multiple-Choice (TMC) Examination. Administered by the National Board for Respiratory Care (NBRC), this exam has two scoring tiers. Hitting the lower cut score earns the Certified Respiratory Therapist (CRT) credential, required to practice in all 50 states.
3. Pursue the Registered Respiratory Therapist (RRT) credential. Candidates who hit the higher TMC cut score become eligible for the Clinical Simulation Examination (CSE). Passing both earns the RRT, the credential most hospitals and health systems now prefer, and often require, for hiring.
4. Get licensed in your state. Most states require licensure in addition to national certification before you can practice.

In other words: your degree program is the gatekeeper. If it isn’t CoARC-accredited, every step after it is at risk.

Why the degree program you choose matters so much

Because the entire career runs through one accredited credential, the school behind that credential isn’t a minor detail, it’s the foundation everything else is built on. A strong program should give you:

• CoARC accreditation, so your degree actually qualifies you to sit for the TMC and CSE exams.
• Real clinical hours, not just classroom theory, hands-on time with ventilators, airway management, blood gas analysis, and patient care under supervision.
• A realistic timeline, so you can plan your finances and your life around finishing.
• Career services and placement support, since your first job out of school is often the hardest one to land.
• A location close to major hospital systems, which usually means richer clinical rotation sites and stronger local employer relationships.

Skipping any of these isn’t just a minor inconvenience, it can mean graduating with a degree that doesn’t actually open the door to licensure.

Where Mandl School fits in

Mandl School, The College of Allied Health, located in midtown Manhattan, offers an A.A.S. in Respiratory Therapy built specifically around that credentialing path:

• 68 credits, 1,875 clock hours, delivered over 75 weeks, a focused, full-time timeline rather than a multi-year general-education slog.
• Dual accreditation: the program is accredited by CoARC (program number 200611) for respiratory therapy specifically, and the school itself is accredited by the Accreditation Bureau for Health Education Schools (ABHES), the combination that keeps graduates eligible for the TMC and CSE exams.
• A curriculum built around the job, not just the test: cardiopulmonary evaluation, therapeutic gas and ventilator management, artificial airway care, medication administration, and cardiopulmonary rehabilitation, alongside the patient- and family-education skills RTs use daily.
• A New York City location, placing students near a dense network of hospitals, sleep labs, and health systems for clinical training and, often, first jobs.

For someone drawn to respiratory therapy’s blend of technical skill and direct patient impact, a program this tightly aligned with the field’s actual licensure requirements removes a lot of the guesswork, you’re not wondering whether your diploma will actually get you to the exam room.

The bottom line

Respiratory therapy offers something increasingly rare in today’s job market: strong, well-documented demand; solid pay; and a clear, credential-based path from classroom to career. But that path only works if it starts with the right degree, one that’s properly accredited and genuinely prepares you for the TMC and CSE exams. A focused, accredited program like the one at Mandl School is designed to do exactly that, giving students a direct route from enrollment to a respiratory therapy career.

Interested in learning more? Visit mandl.edu/programs/respiratory-therapist or reach out to Mandl’s admissions team 212-247-3434 to request information.

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