2025 Best Pastoral Counseling & Specialized Ministries Master's Degree Schools in the Plains States Region

a master's degree in pastoral counseling & specialized ministries is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #100 out of 343 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.

College Factual looked at 3 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Pastoral Counseling & Specialized Ministries Master's Degree Schools in the Plains States Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 109 master's degrees in pastoral counseling & specialized ministries during the 2022-2023 academic year.

What's on this page: * Our Methodology

• Best Master’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Pastoral Counseling & Specialized Ministries School for Your Master's Degree

The pastoral counseling master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. 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

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 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 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 pastoral counseling & specialized ministries students vs. other majors.
• Major Demand - The number of pastoral counseling & specialized ministries students who choose to seek a master's degree at the school.
• 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 much debt pastoral counseling & specialized ministries 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 pastoral counseling & specialized ministries related body.

Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for pastoral counseling & specialized ministries students working on their master's degree.

More Ways to Rank Pastoral Counseling & Specialized Ministries Schools

Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Pastoral Counseling & Specialized Ministries Master's Degree Schools in the Plains States Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.

Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Pastoral Counseling & Specialized Ministries in the Plains States Region

Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a master's degree in pastoral counseling & specialized ministries.

Top Plains States Region Schools for a Master's in Pastoral Counseling

1

Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
Kansas City, MO

21 Annual Graduates

Every student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in pastoral counseling & specialized ministries needs to take a look at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Located in the city of Kansas City, MBTS is a private not-for-profit school with a small student population.More information about a master’s in pastoral counseling & specialized ministries from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

2

University of Northwestern - St Paul
Saint Paul, MN

10 Annual Graduates

University of Northwestern - St Paul is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in pastoral counseling & specialized ministries. Located in the suburb of Saint Paul, Northwestern is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.More information about a master’s in pastoral counseling & specialized ministries from University of Northwestern - St Paul

3

Bethel University Minnesota
Saint Paul, MN

18 Annual Graduates

$45,641 Median Starting Salary

It is difficult to beat Bethel University Minnesota if you want to pursue a master's degree in pastoral counseling & specialized ministries. Bethel University Minnesota is a small private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of Saint Paul.

Master's students who receive their degree from the pastoral counseling program earn about $45,641 in their early career salary.

More information about a master’s in pastoral counseling & specialized ministries from Bethel University Minnesota

Best Pastoral Counseling & Specialized Ministries Colleges by State

Explore the best pastoral counseling & specialized ministries schools for a specific state in the Plains States Region .

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Missouri	193	27
Minnesota	174	47
Iowa	154	0
Kansas	149	0
Nebraska	123	4
South Dakota	89	6

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Rankings in Majors Related to Pastoral Counseling

Pastoral Counseling & Specialized Ministries is one of 7 different types of Theology & Religious Vocations programs to choose from.

Pastoral Counseling Focus Areas

Major	Annual Graduates
Pastoral Studies/Counseling	68
Lay Ministry	38
Urban Ministry	3

Most Popular Majors Related to Pastoral Counseling

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Theological & Ministerial Studies	1,046
Biblical Studies	81
Theology & Religious Vocations (Other)	39
Religious Education	35
Missionary Studies	19
Religious Institution Administration and Law	15
Sacred Music	2

Notes and References

• 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). More about our data sources and methodologies.