If you pursue a master's degree in student counseling, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #20 most popular program in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 8 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Student Counseling Master's Degree Schools in Pennsylvania ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 367 master's degrees in student counseling to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Student Counseling School for Your Master's Degree
The student counseling master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality student counseling program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we include a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a collection of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of master's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their master's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on student counseling students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other student counseling students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
Student Debt - How easy is it for student counseling to pay back their student loans after receiving their master's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized student counseling related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for student counseling students working on their master's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Student Counseling Master's Degree Schools in Pennsylvania ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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It's difficult to beat Duquesne University if you want to pursue a master's degree in student counseling. Duquesne is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the city of Pittsburgh.
Master's recipients from the student counseling major at Duquesne University get $3,299 above the average college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
It is hard to beat Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania if you want to pursue a master's degree in student counseling. Located in the town of Shippensburg, Ship is a public university with a moderately-sized student population.
Soon after graduating, student counseling master's recipients typically make about $49,144 at the beginning of their careers.
Indiana University of Pennsylvania - Main Campus is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in student counseling. IUP is a moderately-sized public university located in the distant town of Indiana.
Students who graduate with their master's from the student counseling program state that they receive average early career income of $43,914.
Located in the town of Kutztown, Kutztown University is a public university with a medium-sized student population.
Master's recipients from the student counseling program at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania get $4,412 more than the standard college grad in this field shortly after graduation.
Located in the large suburb of Gwynedd Valley, Gwynedd - Mercy is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
Student Counseling master's degree recipients from Gwynedd Mercy University earn a boost of approximately $6,192 above the typical 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).
The student counseling master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality student counseling program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
