Master's · earnings grade

Is a Student Counseling degree worth it?

Graduates earn a median $44,327 two years after finishing, more than 23% of master's majors. Measured across 498 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.

D

The verdict on the money

Financially it is a slower start than most majors at this level — worth planning your borrowing around.

Median earnings $44,327 2 years after finishing · per graduate
Typical range $40,089–$48,041 middle half of US programmes
Over no degree +$4,807 vs $39,520 high-school median
Graduates a year 12,984 498 programmes

Where a Student Counseling degree pays best US programmes ranked on their own graduates' median earnings two years out.

#University1 yr out2 yrs out3 yrs outGraduates/yr
1 Fresno Pacific University cost & debt at this university → $70,696 $83,388 $86,000 38
2 Concordia University-Irvine not published $82,440 $86,271 149
3 Touro University $55,092 $67,660 not published 20
4 University of Southern California cost & debt at this university → $43,485 $67,660 $76,179 204
5 California State University-Los Angeles cost & debt at this university → $60,412 $66,461 $69,741 82
6 CUNY Lehman College $58,979 $66,318 $76,237 25
7 CUNY Hunter College $53,365 $63,898 $67,853 48
8 University of La Verne cost & debt at this university → $57,502 $61,516 $64,978 103
9 California State University-Long Beach cost & debt at this university → $55,447 $60,878 $67,789 54
10 California State University-East Bay $58,229 $60,878 $69,691 54
11 Alfred University cost & debt at this university → $60,036 $59,350 $63,734 102
12 Spalding University $47,802 $59,124 $57,348 14

What this figure does and does not tell you

Two medians are worth separating. $44,327 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $43,798 is what the typical programme reports, counting a class of twenty the same as a class of two thousand. The weighted figure is higher here, which means the larger programmes in this field are the better-paying ones.

It is the median of what real graduates of this exact major earned, taken from tax records two years after they completed. It is not a starting salary, not an average of job adverts, and not a projection. The median master's major in this dataset reports $52,837, so Student Counseling sits below the middle by $8,510.

Two years is early in a career. Fields with long training pipelines — medicine, law, research — look weaker at this point than they will at ten, while trades and applied technical fields peak sooner. Read a low figure in a long-pipeline subject as "slow start", not "bad degree".

There is no debt figure here on purpose. The Department of Education publishes earnings by field of study but not borrowing, so nobody can honestly tell you the debt of a specific major. Debt is published per institution — that is where our university cost pages carry it.

Majors that pay more at this level Closest first — useful if you are still choosing.

Theological and Ministerial Studies — $44,189 Research and Experimental Psychology — $44,194 Clinical, Counseling — $44,468 Broadcasting — $44,649 Social Work — $44,960 Community Organization and Advocacy — $45,466

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Student Counseling: the questions people ask

How much do Student Counseling graduates earn?
The median master's graduate earns $44,327 two years after finishing (weighting each programme by how many students it graduates), across 315 US programmes that publish the figure. One year out it is $42,947.
Is a Student Counseling degree worth it?
Financially it is a slower start than most majors at this level — worth planning your borrowing around. The median graduate earns $4,807 a year more than a US worker whose highest qualification is a high-school diploma.
What is the salary range for Student Counseling?
Half of US programmes report medians between $40,089 and $48,041. Where you study moves this figure more than most applicants expect.
How many people graduate in Student Counseling each year?
About 12,984 students complete a master's in this field each year across 498 US programmes.
Does this include student debt?
No — and deliberately. The Department of Education publishes earnings by field of study but not debt, so any "debt by major" figure you see elsewhere is an estimate. Debt is published per institution, which is why our university pages carry it and this page does not.
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Classified by the Department of Education as Student Counseling and Personnel Services (CIP 1311). Source: US Department of Education College Scorecard, field-of-study earnings (median earnings of graduates who received federal financial aid, measured 1–3 years after completion). Figures are per major and credential level, pooled across US programmes. Information only, not financial advice.