Online School Counseling Master's Degree
Overview
School counselors can play an integral role in helping students navigate their way from grade school to high school and onto college or the workforce. Counselors can leverage student interactions and performance data to spot at-risk students before they drop out and help students with disabilities receive the learning support they need to succeed.
Coursework
| Example courses | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abnormal psychology | |||||||||
| Family therapy theories | |||||||||
| Career development and life planning | |||||||||
| Child and adolescent counseling | |||||||||
| Collaborative consultation in schools | |||||||||
An online master’s in school counseling includes courses such as educational research, counseling techniques, and learning and human development. Counselors often coordinate with administrators and teachers to help young students with a variety of needs achieve their educational goals.
Courses such as educational collaboration and multicultural counseling will help prepare future counselors to work successfully in a school setting. Most programs also require students to complete a supervised internship so they can apply the theories and concepts learned in the classroom to a real-world counseling office.
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Job Outlook
| Median salaries* | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Counselor, college/professional school | $44,500 | ||||||||
| Counselor, junior college | $51,000 | ||||||||
| Counselor, elementary/secondary school | $60,000 | ||||||||
*per the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook
School counselors must complete a master’s degree and be certified by the state in order to practice, according to the American School Counselor Association. Once students complete degree and licensing requirements, they’re poised to enter one of the top 20 social service careers, according to the U.S. News Best Jobs rankings.
Demand for counselors is expected to climb in the coming years, especially in the higher education sphere. While the industry as a whole is expected to grow by 19 percent before 2020, positions for academic and career counselors at colleges and universities are expected to increase 34 percent during the same time frame, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Median salaries for school counselors range from close to $44,500 for counselors at colleges and universities to $51,000 for those working at junior colleges and $60,000 for elementary and high school counselors, according to BLS data.
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