Student Counseling is of the hottest master's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #20 most popular major in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 11 schools in Illinois to determine which ones were the best for student counseling students pursuing a master's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 323 master's degrees in student counseling to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Student Counseling School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of student counseling for getting your master's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their master's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your master's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to student counseling students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of student counseling students who choose to seek a master's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How much debt student counseling students go into to obtain their master's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized student counseling related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for student counseling students working on their master's degree.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Student Counseling Master's Degree Schools in Illinois list to help you make the college decision.
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It's hard to beat Concordia University, Chicago if you wish to pursue a master's degree in student counseling. Concordia University, Chicago is a medium-sized private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of River Forest.
Student Counseling master's degree recipients from Concordia University, Chicago get an earnings boost of about $19,006 above the average earnings of student counseling majors.
Every student who is interested in a master's degree in student counseling has to check out DePaul University. Located in the city of Chicago, DePaul is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Students who graduate with their master's from the student counseling program state that they receive average early career income of $52,699.
It's hard to beat Western Illinois University if you want to pursue a master's degree in student counseling. WIU is a medium-sized public university located in the town of Macomb.
After graduating, student counseling master's recipients typically make about $42,905 in the first five years of their career.
Northeastern Illinois University is a moderately-sized public university located in the city of Chicago.
Master's recipients from the student counseling program at Northeastern Illinois University make $12,759 above the standard graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Located in the large city of Chicago, Roosevelt is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
Student Counseling master's degree recipients from Roosevelt University receive an earnings boost of around $5,078 above the average earnings of student counseling majors.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
Your choice of student counseling for getting your master's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
