School Counselor Salary and Career Outlook

Careers in school counseling are some of the most unique and rewarding in public education. School counselors work with all of the stakeholders in the educational ecosystem to help create a culture of success, safety, and learning for students, their families, and the educational professionals that serve them.

Some of the primary responsibilities of a school counselor include:

• providing social/emotional support for students in both individual and group sessions
• aiding students with issues related to study skills and time management
• encouraging and fostering student strengths (both in and out of the classroom)
• collaborating with families and other school faculty to address individual student needs
• helping students and families respond to crises
• identifying students’ social, behavioral, and/or learning issues
• working as part of a child study team to develop and implement interventions for students with special needs and other at-risk students
• coordinating support services between school, home, and/or outside agencies
• offering professional input on school and district policies

This wide variety of responsibilities ensures that becoming a school counselor is a career choice with potential to make a positive difference every day. 

School counseling is a career that looks differently depending upon the population a counselor serves.  Providing support to younger students and their stakeholders is very different from doing so for older, college- and career-bound students.

In some school districts, a counselor may be asked to serve a large span of ages; however, it is more common for counselors to focus on specific age groups.

High school counselors have their own set of unique responsibilities. In the secondary years, students are preparing for college admissions, careers, and adulthood; counselors help facilitate these transitions by helping with course selection, college and job applications, high-stakes test preparation, and interview skills.

Additionally, high school counselors are more likely than their elementary and middle school counterparts to be called upon to help students and families through serious struggles involving peer pressure, risk behaviors, drugs, alcohol, sex, and self-harm.

Most public schools include school counselors as part of their certificated faculty contracts. As such, school counselor salaries and tenure eligibility (where applicable) typically follow the same salary guides and policies as teachers and other certificated staff.

One major exception is 12-month counseling positions. It is common practice for schools to retain some or all of their counseling staff through the summer to complete tasks like child study team evaluations, individualized education programs (IEPs), student matriculation, and scheduling. In these cases, counselors are typically compensated at a higher rate than similarly experienced 10-month employees are.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual school counselor salary in May 2018 was $63,280. It should be noted that this figure is a combination of both 10- and 12-month school counselor salaries.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there is expected to be a 13% growth in the employment of counselors over the 10-year span from 2016-2026. This is a 5% increase over the same projections from a year prior, which indicates demand for those pursuing school counselor careers is likely to continue to rise. Furthermore, this is 6% higher than the projected growth rate of all US careers.