The State of Radiology Education: Are We Training Enough Techs?

The Reality I Witnessed Going From Travel to Education

I spent seven years as a traveling rad tech. I worked in maybe thirty different imaging departments across the country—big hospitals, small rural facilities, trauma centers, outpatient imaging centers, you name it. Every single one was understaffed. Every one.

When I transitioned into full-time staff position at a 450-bed regional hospital three years ago, I eventually moved into an educational role because I kept getting asked the same question from administration and department leadership: "Where are all the techs? Why can't we find people?"

The answer, I discovered, wasn't simple. It's not that techs aren't graduating. It's that not enough techs are graduating, and the pipeline is actively collapsing in ways that most people outside the profession don't fully grasp.

I started digging into this. Talked to program directors. Looked at historical enrollment data. Went to ARRT meetings. What I found was genuinely concerning, and it's a story that deserves to be told to techs themselves, because you're the ones who'll feel the impact.

How Many Programs Have We Actually Lost?

Let me start with the numbers, because they matter.

According to JRCERT (the Joint Review Committee on Education in Radiologic Technology), there were approximately 750 accredited radiologic technology programs in the United States in the early 2000s. That number has been declining steadily. As of 2024, we're looking at roughly 650 accredited programs—a loss of about 100 programs in twenty years.

But here's what makes that more alarming: during that same period, imaging volumes have grown. CT has become ubiquitous. MRI has expanded into routine clinical work. Ultrasound demand has skyrocketed. Interventional procedures have increased. And meanwhile, we're producing fewer techs to handle the load.

In 2005, radiologic technology programs admitted roughly 58,000 students. Last year, that number was around 42,000. We're training about 27% fewer techs while demand has increased.

That's not a staffing shortage. That's a pipeline crisis.

Why Programs Are Closing (And Why That Matters)

During my travel tech years, I worked at a hospital in Tennessee where they were closing their imaging program. I got curious about why, so I had lunch with the program director before she left.

She listed several issues. First, clinical site limitations. To run an accredited program, you need clinical facilities where students can get hands-on training. But many hospitals have been cutting their education budgets. Some facilities can't afford to supervise students anymore. Others have streamlined staffing so tightly that there's no bandwidth for teaching.

Second, faculty issues. Good program directors aren't easy to find, and they're not paid like clinicians in those same hospitals. Why get your ARRT and master's degree to teach for $55,000 a year when you can work clinically for $75,000+? Better pay, fewer headaches, no curriculum maintenance. The exodus of experienced faculty from teaching has been real.

Third, declining enrollment. When programs struggle, word gets out. If a program isn't well-funded, if students aren't getting good clinical placements, if the reputation softens, enrollment drops. Lower enrollment means less revenue. Less revenue means harder to keep the program afloat.

It becomes a death spiral, and we've watched it happen repeatedly.

The directors I've talked to who've successfully maintained programs said the critical factors were institutional commitment and stable funding. The programs that folded usually faced a combination of clinical site problems, faculty turnover, and lack of institutional support.

The Faculty Shortage Is Real And It's Underestimated

This is the piece that frustrates educators I know. You can't run a program without faculty. And right now, the profession isn't creating enough faculty, and it's not retaining the faculty it has.

Teaching is hard. You're responsible for producing competent clinicians. You're grading on top of clinical work. You're staying current with your field while also teaching it. You're managing accreditation requirements, program budgets, student concerns. It's a lot.

The pay differential between clinical work and teaching work is substantial. In my region, a clinical MRI tech might make $70,000 to $85,000. An MRI educator with similar experience might make $58,000 to $68,000. Over a career, that's hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost earning potential.

Some educators are passionate enough about teaching that they absorb that cost. But we're not recruiting enough new faculty to replace the ones who burn out or move to higher-paying clinical or administrative roles.

And here's the catch-22: if programs can't offer competitive faculty salaries, they can't attract strong educators. If they can't attract strong educators, the program quality suffers. If program quality suffers, enrollment drops. If enrollment drops, they have even less budget for faculty salaries.

I've watched excellent educators leave teaching because they were exhausted and undervalued. Their loss to the profession is genuinely tragic.

The Accreditation Burden (And Whether It's Worth It)

Let me be honest: accreditation standards are stringent, and rightfully so. We need quality assurance in radiologic technology education. Standards exist for good reasons.

But accreditation is also resource-intensive. You need specific equipment, clinical partners who meet standards, faculty with specific credentials, curriculum reviews, documentation, site visits. For a small program in a small hospital, meeting accreditation standards can be genuinely difficult.

I've heard some programs say they considered going unaccredited to reduce burden. Theoretically, an unaccredited program might be more flexible. But graduates from unaccredited programs can't sit for the ARRT exam. So that solves nothing for students.

The tension here is real: we need standards, but standards increase the barrier to entry for programs, which decreases supply. It's a genuine constraint in a system that's already constrained.

What The Numbers Actually Tell Us

Here's where I want to be clear about what the data actually shows:

The shortage of radiologic technologists is not primarily because techs are leaving the field faster than new ones are joining. Retention is actually pretty stable in most settings.

The shortage is because we're not producing enough new techs in the first place.

Think about it mathematically:

• Each year, approximately 42,000 students enroll in radiologic technology programs
• Not all complete (completion rate is roughly 85-90%)
• Of those who complete, not all pass the ARRT exam on first attempt
• We're producing roughly 30,000-35,000 new certified techs per year

Meanwhile:

• Some techs retire annually (the profession is aging)
• Some techs leave for other careers
• Imaging demand has grown by 10-15% over the last decade alone

The math doesn't work. We're producing fewer graduates than we're losing, and we're doing it while demand is increasing. That's not a staffing problem you can solve with signing bonuses or better scheduling. That's a pipeline problem.

The Students Who Aren't There

One thing that fascinates me in this educator role is looking at why enrollment is declining when techs are so needed.

Part of it is that radiologic technology programs compete for students with nursing, respiratory therapy, and other healthcare professions. Nursing has aggressive recruitment. Respiratory therapy has major healthcare system backing. Radiology competes with those, but we don't have as much visibility or marketing.

Part of it is that career counselors don't always know about radiologic technology. Students interested in healthcare often get steered toward nursing or PA programs because those are visible. Radiology tech is sort of the invisible middle—medical but technical, clinical but different from nursing.

Part of it is pure economics. A radiologic technology program typically takes two years. During those two years, a student isn't working full-time. Not everyone can afford that investment, even with financial aid.

And part of it is honestly that the profession hasn't done a stellar job marketing itself to prospective students. We're competing with more visible, more aggressively promoted healthcare careers.

What Needs to Change

If you'd asked me three years ago if the radiology education crisis was fixable, I might have been pessimistic. Now, having worked inside a program and talked to colleagues at other institutions, I think there are actually some solvable problems here.

First, institutions need to fund programs adequately. Not as cost centers that barely justify themselves, but as strategic investments in workforce development. If your hospital needs 50 techs and imaging demand is growing, you should be helping fund education that produces those techs. Some hospitals are starting to do this. More should.

Second, the profession needs to make teaching careers more financially viable. Whether through higher salaries for faculty or other incentives, we need to stop losing experienced educators. The cost of losing one good program director is much higher than the cost of paying that director competitively.

Third, accreditation bodies need to consider whether current standards are creating unnecessary barriers. I'm not saying lower standards—I'm saying maybe there are ways to meet quality goals without quite so much administrative burden that it becomes impossible for smaller programs to exist.

Fourth, the profession needs to market itself better to prospective students. High schoolers considering healthcare careers often don't even know radiologic technology is an option. That's on us.

Finally, we need to look at the clinical site problem creatively. Some programs are experimenting with more simulation, more partnerships, less dependence on having an imaging department right there. Innovation in how we structure clinical education could expand options.

What This Means For You

If you're a young tech reading this, understand that your profession is in demand specifically because there aren't enough of you. That's actually good news for job security. It's less good news for staffing ratios and work environment in the short term.

If you're an experienced tech, understand that mentoring new techs matters more than it ever has. The people you teach are part of solving a real shortage.

If you're thinking about transitioning into education, understand that the profession needs you. It's not a job for the faint of heart, but it's genuinely necessary work.

The radiology education crisis isn't unsolvable. But it requires investment, attention, and institutional commitment. Right now, we're not getting enough of those things. Until we do, the pipeline stays broken, imaging departments stay understaffed, and the shortage continues.

That's not acceptable when we know what the problem is and how to fix it.