Chiropractic 2025:

Chiropractic Schools, Education, and Philosophy
Chiropractic 2025: Divergent Futures
What will chiropractic education in the U.S. look like in 2025? Our interviewees expressed a wide range of views
on how the schools, enrollment, costs, curriculum, and training opportunities may develop over the next decade.
However, all agree that to overcome challenges in enrollment and tuition as well as meet the opportunities and
challenges of a changing U.S. health care industry, chiropractic schools will need to innovate in educational and
curricular delivery as well as boost chiropractic research activity.
Number and Types of Chiropractic Schools
The number of U.S. chiropractic degree programs and institutions accredited by the Council on Chiropractic
Education (CCE) has risen from 17 to 18 since IAF’s 2005 report on the future of chiropractic. 1 This change includes
the fact that D’Youville College chiropractic program obtained accreditation in July 2007, 2 the National University
of Health Sciences opened its Florida campus in July 2011, 3 and the Los Angeles branch of Cleveland Chiropractic
College closed down in August 2011 due to declining enrollment. 4 Some programs are considering partnerships with
other health professional schools and/or with chiropractic schools with differing philosophical orientations to attract
more students and offer a range of tracks that vary in philosophical emphasis, tuition cost, and study time. IAF’s
Chiropractic 2025 scenarios assume that one or more of the existing U.S. chiropractic programs or institutions may
close or merge with another school by 2025, for reasons mentioned by interviewees including a lack of affiliations,
little diversity in terms of degree programs or certifications, or having too few students to remain viable.
Chiropractic programs continue to be offered solely through privately-funded institutions. All but two of the
programs are offered through relatively specialized institutions; the D’Youville College and University of Bridgeport
programs are affiliated with regional universities. Efforts to set up the nation’s first public chiropractic school at
Florida State University failed when Florida’s Board of Governors voted against the proposed school in January
2005. 5 Most interviewees do not consider it likely that another state-funded chiropractic college will emerge
by 2025, due to declining chiropractic enrollment trends, public education budget cuts, or lack of leadership to
spearhead another attempt at establishing a state-funded chiropractic program. However, other experts indicated
that there continues to be an interest by state schools in chiropractic education, and that it is very possible that
a state-funded chiropractic college will be successfully set up over the next decade, assuming more effective
involvement and support of chiropractic organizations than was the case in Florida. Representing a step in this
direction is National University of Health Sciences Florida Campus located at the University Partnership Center at
St. Petersburg College. St. Petersburg College is a public community college that used excess campus space to host
degree programs that were deemed to be useful for the community.
Philosophical Orientation of Schools
There have been philosophical divisions among chiropractors and chiropractic colleges since the early years of
the profession. In our 2015 Chiropractic Scenarios done in 2005, IAF surveyed the presidents and/or deans of the
chiropractic colleges and had them place their school and all of the other schools on a spectrum that moved from
conservative to more liberal. Figure 2 shows those results.
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