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 6 schools in the Rocky Mountains Region to determine which ones were the best for student counseling students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 286 master's degrees in student counseling during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
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 take this into account we consider a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a host of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
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
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 the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Student Counseling Master's Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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It is hard to beat University of Wyoming if you wish to pursue a master's degree in student counseling. Located in the remote town of Laramie, UW is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Master's recipients from the student counseling program at University of Wyoming make $2,504 more than the standard college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
The University of Montana is a great choice for students interested in a master's degree in student counseling. UM is a fairly large public university located in the city of Missoula.
Students who graduate with their master's from the student counseling program state that they receive average early career earnings of $41,773.
Every student who is interested in a master's degree in student counseling has to take a look at Boise State University. Boise State is a very large public university located in the midsize city of Boise.
Master's students who receive their degree from the student counseling program make about $44,140 in the first couple years of working.
University of Northern Colorado is a good choice for students interested in a master's degree in student counseling. University of Northern Colorado is a moderately-sized public university located in the medium-sized city of Greeley.
Students who graduate with their master's from the student counseling program report average early career income of $48,642.
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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
