Pastoral Counseling & Specialized Ministries is about average in terms of popularity for associate degrees programs. That is, it ranks #150 out of the 328 majors across the country that we analyze each year. So, you may have to do some digging around to find quality schools that offer the degree program. This list can help with that.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 4 schools in the United States to determine which ones were the best for pastoral counseling & specialized ministries students pursuing a associate degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 143 associate degrees in pastoral counseling & specialized ministries during the <nil> academic year.
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Choosing a Great Pastoral Counseling & Specialized Ministries School for Your Associate Degree
Your choice of pastoral counseling & specialized ministries for getting your associate degree school matters. Important measures of a quality pastoral 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 associate degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Average Early-Career Salaries
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their associate degree from the school. After all, your associate 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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to pastoral counseling & specialized ministries students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other pastoral counseling & specialized ministries students want to attend this school to pursue a associate degree.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How much debt pastoral counseling & specialized ministries students go into to obtain their associate 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 full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for pastoral counseling & specialized ministries students working on their associate degree.
The pastoral counseling school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Pastoral Counseling & Specialized Ministries Associate Degree Schools.
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Any student who is interested in an associate degree in pastoral counseling & specialized ministries needs to take a look at Indiana Wesleyan University - National & Global. Located in the rural area of Marion, IWU is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Those pastoral counseling & specialized ministries students who get their associate degree from Indiana Wesleyan University - National & Global make $2,095 more than the average pastoral counseling grad.
Grace Christian University is a good option for individuals interested in an associate degree in pastoral counseling & specialized ministries. Located in the city of Wyoming, Grace is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
After graduating, pastoral counseling associate recipients typically earn about $33,522 at the beginning of their careers.
It's hard to beat Valor Christian College if you wish to pursue an associate degree in pastoral counseling & specialized ministries. Valor Christian College is a fairly small private not-for-profit college located in the city of Canal Winchester.
After graduation, pastoral counseling associate recipients generally make about $29,571 in their early careers.
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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.
by our College Data Analytics Team
Your choice of pastoral counseling & specialized ministries for getting your associate degree school matters. Important measures of a quality pastoral 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:
