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.
College Factual looked at 9 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Student Counseling Master's Degree Schools in North Carolina ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 532 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 good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we include a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a collection of different 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 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 North Carolina list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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Any student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in student counseling has to look into North Carolina State University. Located in the city of Raleigh, NC State is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those student counseling students who get their master's degree from North Carolina State University earn $3,109 more than the typical student counseling graduate.
It is difficult to beat University of North Carolina at Charlotte if you wish to pursue a master's degree in student counseling. UNC Charlotte is a very large public university located in the city of Charlotte.
Students who graduate with their master's from the student counseling program state that they receive average early career earnings of $47,641.
Every student who is interested in a master's degree in student counseling has to look into Appalachian State University. Appalachian State is a very large public university located in the distant town of Boone.
Students who graduate with their master's from the student counseling program state that they receive average early career wages of $46,878.
It is difficult to beat University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill if you wish to pursue a master's degree in student counseling. Located in the city of Chapel Hill, UNC Chapel Hill is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Soon after graduating, student counseling master's recipients usually earn around $48,566 in the first five years of their career.
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.
