Quick answer: School counseling adapts well to distance delivery at the coursework level, and many CACREP-accredited programs run online or hybrid cohorts aimed at working educators. The credential runs through a CACREP-accredited master’s degree in school counseling. Programs, the careers this degree opens, and what they pay are covered below.
What Do These Programs Actually Look Like?
School counseling adapts well to distance delivery at the coursework level, and many CACREP-accredited programs run online or hybrid cohorts aimed at working educators. What stays in person is practicum and internship, completed in real schools or advising offices under a supervising counselor, which is also the part that fixes the calendar.
Before you apply anywhere, confirm CACREP accreditation and that the program is aligned to certification in the state where you intend to work, and ask how the in-person practicum and internship placements are arranged. With those filters set, compare online school counseling programs enrolling now:
Colleges Offering This Degree
Every school listed is verified in federal IPEDS data both to award this degree and to offer programs that can be completed entirely by distance education at this level. Whether this exact degree is delivered fully online varies by school, so confirm the format before you apply.
How we rank schools – graduation rate, graduate earnings, cost and retention.
Advertising plays no part.
This page lists 10 schools, closest group first, then ordered by
BOC Score with the highest at the top.
10 of them carry a score.
LOCAL RANK
Location / proximity to this page
Defines the local group
Graduation rate how often students finish
30%
Median earnings, 10 years after entry whether it paid off
25%
Average net price what students actually pay after aid; lower ranks higher
20%
Retention rate how many come back for year two
15%
Fully online availability whether you can study while working
10%
Scores come from IPEDS (2024) and the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard.
Earnings are for all graduates of a school, not one program, so treat them as a signal
about the institution rather than about this subject.
Sponsored listings are paid placements and are labelled as such; they are separate from
this ranking and never change it. Read the full methodology.
CACREP accredits counseling programs, and while requirements are set by state education agencies rather than nationally, CACREP accreditation is the common reference point for certification and for reciprocity between states. Many states also require a period of teaching or school experience. Confirm the sequence with your state agency before enrolling, because the order matters.
Separately from programmatic accreditation, the institution itself should hold accreditation from a recognized institutional accreditor. Credit transfer between institutions is decided by the receiving school and genuinely varies, so get any transfer evaluation in writing before enrolling.
How to Choose a Program
Confirm CACREP accreditation and, more importantly, confirm the program is built for certification in the state you intend to work in - school counseling requirements are set by state education agencies and differ enough that a program aligned to another state can cost you a year. Ask how practicum and internship placements are arranged. Ask how the career development coursework treats apprenticeship and trade pathways.
Licensing and Credentialing
The national framework is the constant: a CACREP-accredited program, then the state school counselor certification administered through your state education agency. What sits on top of that framework is set jurisdiction by jurisdiction, and this site does not hold a sourced dataset of per-state rules, so confirm the specifics with your state education agency and counseling licensure board before enrolling.
Questions to Ask an Admissions Office
Ask these before an application fee, and get the answers in writing rather than over the phone:
Is the program currently with accreditation from CACREP, and has its status changed in the last three years? Verify against CACREP directly rather than the program’s own page.
Who arranges the required in-person hours, the program or the student, and what happens if no site is available in my cohort year?
Which prior coursework or credentials transfer in, and will you evaluate my transcript in writing before I enroll? Transfer is decided by the receiving institution and genuinely varies.
What is the total time to completion for someone in my situation, including prerequisites, and how many students in the last cohort finished on that schedule?
Before you shortlist schools, it also helps to be precise about the job this degree points at.
Where This Sits on the Ladder
This degree sits above credentials many readers already hold. The rungs run:
Teacher or trade instructor - classroom or shop experience, advises informally
School or career counselor - CACREP-accredited master’s, certified, owns the advising program
What Does the Job Involve Day to Day?
School and career counselors help students choose what comes next: course selection, postsecondary and career planning, financial and personal barriers, and increasingly the case for skilled trades against a default four-year assumption. Employment splits between K-12 schools, colleges and career centers, and workforce agencies. The work is part advising, part data and program management.
What You Will Study
Coursework typically covers counseling theory and technique, human development, career development and assessment, group counseling, multicultural counseling, program design and evaluation, ethics and law, and research methods. Career development is the module most relevant to trade advising and the one worth examining, since programs vary widely in how seriously they treat non-degree pathways.
How Fast Is the Field Growing?
Employment is projected to change by 3.5% between 2024 and 2034, with roughly 31,000 openings a year (BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34). Openings come from growth and from replacing people who leave the occupation, which is why the annual figure can look large relative to the percentage.
What These Careers Pay
Educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors earn a median $64,330 per year, or $30.93 per hour (BLS OEWS, May 2025).
School and Career Counseling at a Glance
Measure
Value
Median annual wage
$64,330
Median hourly wage
$30.93
Employed nationally
353,310
Bottom 10 percent
$45,020
Top 10 percent
$104,770
Middle half
$51,270 to $82,870
Projected change, 2024-34
3.5%
Annual openings
about 31,000
Wage and employment figures: BLS OEWS, May 2025. Growth and openings: BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34.
Cost, Time and Whether It Pays
This site does not publish tuition figures, because there is no sourced dataset behind them and the number varies enormously by institution and residency. What can be stated is the wage structure the degree can lead into. The middle half of educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors earn between $51,270 and $82,870, with the bottom 10 percent at $45,020 and the top 10 percent at $104,770 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). The gap between the 25th and 75th percentile is the honest range to plan against - not the median alone, and not the top figure.
Where Do These Roles Pay Most?
State
Median annual wage
Employment
California
$86,500
45,140
Alaska
$82,900
540
Washington
$82,670
6,610
District of Columbia
$80,470
1,690
Massachusetts
$79,930
11,460
Highest-paying states, BLS OEWS, May 2025. Cost of living is not held constant, so a higher median does not automatically mean more disposable income.
Where the Jobs Are
State
Employment
Median annual wage
California
45,140
$86,500
Texas
31,730
$67,900
New York
23,380
$71,610
Florida
22,800
$53,140
Illinois
13,580
$62,420
Largest employing states, BLS OEWS, May 2025. Employment concentration and pay do not track each other. State and metro pages linked below carry the full distribution.
What to Weigh Before Committing
Two things to weigh. The pay is moderate for a master’s-level credential, with a median of $64,330 and a wide spread from $45,020 to $104,770 (BLS OEWS, May 2025) that mostly reflects the difference between K-12 school positions and college or agency roles. And requirements are genuinely state-bound, so a program aligned to the wrong state is a real risk. Against that, the openings figure is unusually large at about 31,000 per year (BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34), the schedule follows an academic calendar, and for anyone who came up through a trade this is a direct way to change how the next cohort of students hears about the option.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you earn a school counseling degree online?
The coursework, in many CACREP-accredited programs, yes - several are designed for working educators. Practicum and internship hours are completed in person in schools or advising offices under supervision, and cannot be done remotely.
How much do school and career counselors make?
The national median annual wage is $64,330, or $30.93 per hour (BLS OEWS, May 2025). The bottom 10 percent earn $45,020 or less and the top 10 percent earn $104,770 or more, across 353,310 counselors and advisors nationally. The spread largely reflects K-12 school roles versus college and agency positions.
Do I need to be a teacher first?
In some states yes, in others no. A number of state education agencies require teaching experience or a teaching credential before school counselor certification, and others do not. Because this is set state by state, confirm the sequence with your state education agency before choosing a program.
What degree do school counselors need?
A master's degree is the standard entry point in the national framework, commonly from a CACREP-accredited program, followed by state certification. Requirements past that framework are set by state education agencies.
Is this a growing field?
Employment is projected to change by 3.5% from 2024 to 2034, with about 31,000 openings per year (BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34). The percentage is moderate but the annual openings figure is large, because the workforce is sizeable and turnover is steady.
Can a tradesperson move into career counseling?
It is an unusual but coherent path, particularly into career centers, workforce agencies and community college advising, where credible knowledge of apprenticeship and licensure is scarce. The master's degree is still required. Prior trade experience is not academic credit, but it is a genuine differentiator in hiring.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025, SOC 21-1012 Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections program, 2024-34.
About this guide: Researched and written by the TradeCareerPath Editorial Team. Our editorial team researches and sources every trade school and career guide using federal labor and education data, including BLS OEWS and Employment Projections, DOL apprenticeship records, IPEDS, College Scorecard, and state licensing boards. We follow the editorial standards documented at /editorial-policy/.
