Pastoral Counseling & Specialized Ministries is about average in terms of popularity for bachelor's degrees programs. That is, it ranks #161 out of the 363 majors across the country that we analyze each year. So, it might take a little more work to find colleges and universities that offer the degree program.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 2 schools in Virginia to determine which ones were the best for pastoral counseling & specialized ministries students pursuing a bachelor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 112 bachelor's degrees in pastoral counseling & specialized ministries during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of bachelor's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their bachelor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
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 - The number of pastoral counseling & specialized ministries students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
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 bachelor'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 full 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 bachelor's degree.
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 Bachelor's Degree Schools in Virginia ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat.
Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.
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Liberty University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in pastoral counseling & specialized ministries. Located in the small city of Lynchburg, Liberty University is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
After graduating, pastoral counseling bachelor's recipients generally earn about $34,083 at the beginning of their careers.
It is difficult to beat Regent University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in pastoral counseling & specialized ministries. Regent is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Virginia Beach.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the pastoral counseling program earn an average of $33,407 in their early career salary.
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Pastoral Counseling & Specialized Ministries Related Rankings by Major
One of 7 majors within the Theology & Religious Vocations area of study, Pastoral Counseling & Specialized Ministries has other similar majors worth exploring.
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.
