What Are The Best Psychology Schools For Becoming A Career Counselor?

The best psy­chol­o­gy schools are avail­able to you right now. At Bach­e­lor’s Degree Cen­ter, we’ve ranked col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties on a num­ber of cri­te­ria, and we’re extreme­ly proud of our Top 15 Bachelor’s Degrees in Psy­chol­o­gy. If you want to become a career coun­selor, or are sim­ply look­ing for the best psy­chol­o­gy schools to attend, you’ve found the right place.

Becom­ing a career coun­selor is an admirable and ambi­tious under­tak­ing. In today’s com­pet­i­tive and under­fund­ed men­tal health land­scape, mak­ings sure you have a degree from one of the best psy­chol­o­gy schools you can find will sep­a­rate you from your com­pe­ti­tion. When look­ing for the best psy­chol­o­gy school for you, ask yourself:

• What are the most pres­ti­gious psy­chol­o­gy schools?
• What schools have the best reten­tion and grad­u­ate rates?
• What schools have the best grad­u­ate employ­ment rates in psychology?
• How much will it cost?
• How is the pro­gram deliv­ered? On-cam­pus, online, or in a hybrid format?

Every­one wants to go to Yale or Brown (both of which made our list), but the best psy­chol­o­gy schools real­ly dif­fer based on indi­vid­ual con­straints, desires, and sched­ules. Don’t get caught in the trap of fix­at­ing on a par­tic­u­lar school over its per­ceived pres­tige when you need to find a pro­gram that you, per­son­al­ly, can com­plete. In our Top 15 Bachelor’s Degrees in Psy­chol­o­gy rank­ing, you’ll find great choic­es you might not know about, that are afford­able, com­pre­hen­sive, and can jump­start your career in coun­sel­ing or psychology.

Accord­ing to the Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics, the medi­an pay for school and career coun­selors in 2017 was $55,410 per year, or $26.64 per hour. They found typ­i­cal entry-lev­el edu­ca­tion was a Mas­ter’s degree, which you can wor­ry about after earn­ing your Bach­e­lor’s in Psy­chol­o­gy. There are also many posi­tions in coun­sel­ing that you’ll qual­i­fy for after earn­ing your Bach­e­lor’s degree.

The NCES (Nation­al Cen­ter for Edu­ca­tion Sta­tis­tics) found out the fol­low­ing about psychology:

• It’s the Unit­ed States’ fourth most pop­u­lar Bachelor’s discipline.
• Psy­chol­o­gy pro­duces approx­i­mate­ly 114,000 grad­u­ates each year.

Psy­chol­o­gy is a great choice because it can lead to spe­cif­ic careers in the field, or a num­ber of posi­tions in busi­ness, social ser­vices, and health­care, among many oth­ers. Health­care jobs are expect­ed to aver­age growth of 10% over the next ten years.

In build­ing our best psy­chol­o­gy schools rank­ing, we looked at the top tra­di­tion­al face-to-face under­grad­u­ate Psy­chol­o­gy pro­grams at Amer­i­can col­leges. We then used the U.S. News and World Report’s rank­ing for “Best Under­grad­u­ate Teach­ing.” From that list, we fil­tered schools look­ing for high reten­tion rates and low stu­dent-fac­ul­ty ratio. Tuition prices were then assessed from NCES Col­lege Nav­i­ga­tor data­base, and pref­er­ence was giv­en to schools known for pro­vid­ing gen­er­ous finan­cial aid. All the pro­grams had to promi­nent­ly fea­ture expe­ri­en­tial, prac­ti­cal learn­ing. Oth­er things con­sid­ered includ­ed fac­ul­ty cre­den­tials, lab spe­cial­iza­tions, uni­ver­si­ty pres­tige, off-cam­pus learn­ing, and grad­u­a­tion rates.

Now take that resource, and the rest of our Bach­e­lor’s rank­ings, and find the best school for you.

Relat­ed:

25 Best Bachelor’s in Psychology

15 Best Online Bachelor’s in Psychology

10 Fastest Online Bachelor’s in Psychology

10 Most Afford­able Bachelor’s in Psychology