Ranked #20 in popularity, student counseling is one of the most sought-after master's degree programs in the nation. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 6 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Student Counseling Master's Degree Schools in Massachusetts ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 222 master's degrees in student counseling during the 2022-2023 academic year.
DEBUG: Checking offer "Educational Counseling (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Educational Counseling (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - School Counseling (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Grad Cert - School Counseling (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "School Counseling (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "School Counseling (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - Child Counseling (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.9
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Grad Cert - Child Counseling (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.9)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Counseling Graduate Certificate Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Counseling Graduate Certificate Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Counseling Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Counseling Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Counseling Masters Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Counseling Masters Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Counseling PhD Programs (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Counseling PhD Programs (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - Mental Health Counseling (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Grad Cert - Mental Health Counseling (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "School Psychology (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "School Psychology (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "School Psychology (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "School Psychology (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "School Psychology (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "School Psychology (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "School Psychology (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "School Psychology (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Child Psychology (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Child Psychology (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Child Psychology (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Child Psychology (I Have a Bachelors)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Counselor Education (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Counselor Education (I Have a Masters)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 13
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 13 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.8
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 13
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 3 offers with relevance >= 1.0
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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we consider a school'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.
Average Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their master's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their master's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
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 schools 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 Massachusetts ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "education//student-counseling"
It's hard to beat Boston University if you want to pursue a master's degree in student counseling. Located in the city of Boston, Boston U is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Master's graduates who receive their degree from the student counseling program make about $55,652 for their early career.
It is hard to beat Bridgewater State University if you wish to pursue a master's degree in student counseling. Located in the large suburb of Bridgewater, Bridgewater State is a public university with a medium-sized student population.
Soon after graduating, student counseling master's recipients usually earn around $54,196 in the first five years of their career.
University of Massachusetts - Boston is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in student counseling. Located in the large city of Boston, UMass Boston is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Soon after graduating, student counseling master's recipients generally earn around $60,385 in their early careers.
It's hard to beat Springfield College if you wish to pursue a master's degree in student counseling. Located in the city of Springfield, Springfield College is a private not-for-profit college with a small student population.
Students who graduate with their master's from the student counseling program report average early career earnings of $49,996.
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).