School Counseling Graduate Programs

Say school counselor and most of us remember the person we became familiar with during our senior year in high school when he or she helped us apply for college and the financial assistance to fund it. That is one thing school counselors do but it's by no means their only responsibility.

By earning a counseling degree, jobs working with children of all ages are available. People with counseling degrees help guide a child's educational experience from elementary school through college and they can be quite valuable in dealing with a child's social and emotional lives as well.

Counseling degrees are quite similar to a social worker degree in that the counselor becomes an advisor and confidante to students experiencing difficulty in almost every aspect of his or her young life. Counseling degree programs include courses on psychology and psychological evaluation and therapies, academic and career advisement, family dynamics and economic impact as well as the educational regulations and expectations of the child as a student.

Most people working directly with the students will hold a bachelor's level counseling degree but those working in administrative positions may be required to hold a masters in school counseling. Successful completion of school counseling graduate programs are also required in some of the larger schools, those that generate a high level of job competition because of location or academic rank, or those in larger or desirable locations. Many private schools require masters in school counseling degrees of their counselors regardless of location, size, or age of student the counselor works with.

Statistics on school counselor jobs in the United States in May 2010, published by the US Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, indicate there were 246,890 school counselors at work in the US at that time. Those school counselors earned a mean hourly wage of $26.91, or $55,970 annually. The five states that paid school counselors the most were New Jersey, Alaska, Maryland, California, and New York.

Counseling degrees are quite similar to a social worker degree in that the counselor becomes an advisor and confidante to students experiencing difficulty in almost every aspect of his or her young life. Counseling degree programs include courses on psychology and psychological evaluation and therapies, academic and career advisement, family dynamics and economic impact as well as the educational regulations and expectations of the child as a student.