Home Health Aide

Types of Degrees Home Health Aide Majors Are Getting

The following table lists how many home health aide/home attendant graduations there were for each degree level during the last year for which data was available.

Education Level	Number of Grads
Basic Certificate	960
Undergraduate Certificate	22
Associate Degree	1

What Home Health Aide Majors Need to Know

O*NET surveyed people in occupations related to home health aide and asked them what knowledge areas, skills, and abilities were important for their jobs. The responses were rated on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being most important.

Knowledge Areas for Home Health Aide Majors

According to O*NET survey takers, a major in home health aide should prepare you for careers in which you will need to be knowledgeable in the following areas:

• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Psychology - Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
• Public Safety and Security - Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions.

Skills for Home Health Aide Majors

A major in home health aide prepares you for careers in which the following skill-sets are crucial:

• Service Orientation - Actively looking for ways to help people.
• Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
• Social Perceptiveness - Being aware of others’ reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
• Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
• Speaking - Talking to others to convey information effectively.

Abilities for Home Health Aide Majors

As a home health aide major, you will find yourself needing the following abilities:

• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).

What Can You Do With a Home Health Aide Major?

Below is a list of occupations associated with home health aide:

Job Title	Job Growth Rate	Median Salary
Home Health Aides	47.3%	$24,200
Personal Care Aides	38.6%	$24,020

Amount of Education Required for Careers Related to Home Health Aide

Some degrees associated with home health aide may require an advanced degree, while others may not even require a bachelor’s in the field. Whatever the case may be, pursuing more education usually means that more career options will be available to you.

How much schooling do you really need to compete in today’s job market? People currently working in careers related to home health aide have obtained the following education levels.

Education Level	Percentage of Workers
Less than a High School Diploma	7.9%
High School Diploma - or the equivalent (for example, GED)	57.7%
Post-Secondary Certificate - awarded for training completed after high school (for example, in agriculture or natural resources, computer services, personal or culinary services, engineering technologies, healthcare, construction trades, mechanic and repair technologies, or precision production)	13.6%
Some College Courses	11.1%
Associate’s Degree (or other 2-year degree)	4.9%
Bachelor’s Degree	0.6%
Master’s Degree	2.8%

Online Home Health Aide Programs

The following table lists the number of programs by degree level, along with how many schools offered online courses in the field.

Degree Level	Colleges Offering Programs	Colleges Offering Online Classes
Certificate (Less Than 1 Year)	0	0
Certificate (1-2 years)	10	0
Certificate (2-4 Years)	0	0
Associate’s Degree	2	0
Bachelor’s Degree	0	0
Post-Baccalaureate	0	0
Master’s Degree	0	0
Post-Master’s	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Research)	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Professional Practice)	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Other)	0	0

Majors Related to Home Health Aide

You may also be interested in one of the following majors related to home health aide.

Major	Number of Grads
Medication Aide	679
Health Aide	329
Rehabilitation Aide	179
Other Health Aides/Attendants/Orderlies	45
Physical Therapy Technician/Aide	29

References

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

• College Factual
• College Scorecard
• National Center for Education Statistics
• O*NET Online
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers First Quarter 2020

More about our data sources and methodologies.