Louisiana School Counselor
Louisiana school counselors work with students from pre-K through 12th grade. The state projects about 400 job openings a year from 2024 to 2034, and the May 2025 median wage is $61,870. You’ll need a CACREP-accredited counseling master’s and school counselor certification from the Louisiana Department of Education. Nine CACREP-accredited programs in the state offer school counseling.
Louisiana Links
About 4,820 people in Louisiana work in the federal job category that covers school counselors, according to May 2025 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. In public schools, they work under the Louisiana School Counseling Model, a state framework aligned with the ASCA National Model that guides how counselors design programs, support students, and measure results.
School counselor certification in Louisiana is issued by the Louisiana Department of Education. It’s a different credential from the Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) license, which the Louisiana Licensed Professional Counselors Board of Examiners issues for clinical practice. Both certification routes start with a graduate degree in counseling from a CACREP-accredited program: a school counseling concentration qualifies directly, and a degree in another counseling concentration can qualify with six additional credit hours of CACREP school counseling coursework. You’ll also need a 100-hour practicum, a 600-hour internship in a school setting, and a score of at least 159 on the Praxis School Counselor (5422) exam. Certified teachers can add a School Counselor (K-12) endorsement to their teaching certificate. Candidates without a teaching certificate can pursue the Ancillary School Counselor (K-12) certificate, which the state issues at the request of the Louisiana school system that hires you, though it can first issue an eligibility letter so you can show districts you qualify.
What School Counselors Do in Louisiana
A high school junior in Shreveport hasn’t taken the PSAT. She doesn’t know what financial aid looks like, and her parents never went to college. Her counselor spends an hour building a testing timeline, walking her through the FAFSA, and pulling up three in-state nursing programs worth a look. That’s a typical afternoon, not an exceptional one.
Louisiana school counselors work across three overlapping areas: academic development, career readiness, and social-emotional well-being. In elementary school, that might mean classroom lessons on self-regulation and handling conflict. In middle school, the focus shifts toward goal-setting, course planning, and early conversations about career pathways. By high school, counselors focus on college and career planning, mental health support, and crisis response.
The Louisiana School Counseling Model provides structure for this work. Under the state’s educator evaluation system, LEADS, counselors in public and charter schools set student learning targets (SLTs) with their evaluator each fall and are evaluated on the Louisiana Counselor Rubric. Day to day, they track data such as attendance, grades, and referral trends to decide where their time matters most.
A lot of the job happens outside one-on-one meetings. When chronic absences spike at a middle school after winter break, the counselor is often the one pulling the attendance data, meeting with teachers, and calling families to find out what changed. The ASCA National Model sets the broader professional framework, and Louisiana’s model adapts it to the state’s own accountability system.
Job Outlook in Louisiana
Louisiana projects about 400 openings a year for school and career counselors from 2024 to 2034. Total employment is expected to grow by only about 210 jobs over that whole decade, so most openings come from counselors who retire, move, or leave the field. Projected growth is 4.4% from 2024 to 2034, a little above the 3.5% projected nationally for the occupation over the same period.
Caseloads are a key part of the job to know before you commit. ASCA recommends no more than 250 students per school counselor. In the 2024-25 school year, Louisiana public schools had about 423 students per counselor, according to ASCA’s analysis of federal data, compared with 372 nationally. For a full breakdown of how much school counselors earn across the country, the national salary page has state-by-state comparisons.
School Counselor Salary in Louisiana
Louisiana school counselors earn a median salary of $61,870 a year, below the national median of $64,330, according to May 2025 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. These figures cover the federal category for educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors, which includes some workers outside K-12 schools. Pay varies widely by metro area. Among the metro areas shown, Lake Charles has the highest median at $87,940, Monroe follows at $72,420, and Baton Rouge comes in at $57,930.
| Percentile | Annual Salary (May 2025) |
|---|---|
| 10th | $45,340 |
| 25th | $50,770 |
| Median (50th) | $61,870 |
| 75th | $75,030 |
| 90th | $87,940 |
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (SOC 21-1012).
| Metro Area | Median Salary (May 2025) |
|---|---|
| Baton Rouge, LA | $57,930 |
| Lafayette, LA | $60,450 |
| Lake Charles, LA | $87,940 |
| Monroe, LA | $72,420 |
| New Orleans-Metairie, LA | $59,200 |
| Shreveport-Bossier City, LA | $66,610 |
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (SOC 21-1012).
CACREP-Accredited School Counseling Programs in Louisiana
Nine Louisiana universities offer a CACREP-accredited master’s in school counseling. They’re listed below by the number of master’s graduates each reported for 2023, which reflects program size, not quality.
| Institution | City | Degree | Accredited Through | Master’s Graduates (2023) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southeastern Louisiana University | Hammond | M.S. | October 31, 2030 | 30 |
| Louisiana State University – New Orleans (formerly University of New Orleans) | New Orleans | M.Ed. | October 31, 2030 | 22 |
| University of Louisiana at Monroe | Monroe | M.S. | March 31, 2028 | 20 |
| Louisiana State University | Baton Rouge | M.Ed. | April 30, 2034 | 16 |
| Northwestern State University of Louisiana | Natchitoches | M.A. | October 31, 2031 | 15 |
| Nicholls State University | Thibodaux | M.Ed. | October 31, 2031 | 13 |
| University of Holy Cross | New Orleans | M.A. | October 31, 2031 | 7 |
| University of Louisiana at Lafayette | Lafayette | M.S. | March 31, 2031 | 3 |
| Xavier University of Louisiana | New Orleans | M.A. | March 31, 2033 | 1 |
The University of Louisiana at Monroe’s CACREP status is listed as Accredited (Reaffirmation in Process), with its current accreditation cycle running through March 31, 2028.
Louisiana sets a counselor staffing rule for high schools
As of 2026, Bulletin 741, the state board’s handbook of rules for public schools, requires each secondary school to provide school counselors at a ratio of 1:450 “or a major fraction thereof.” The same rule says counselors should spend the majority of their time on direct counseling and that discipline, substitute teaching, and administrative clerical work aren’t part of the job. That staffing standard sits well above ASCA’s 250:1 recommendation, so it’s worth asking a parish about caseloads and assigned duties when you interview. (Louisiana Administrative Code, Title 28, Part CXV, §1125)
How this table was built. Every program here is accredited by CACREP as a School Counseling program, verified against the CACREP register on September 30, 2026. Any program whose CACREP status shows a teach-out, closure, show-cause, or withdrawal is excluded, because a reader cannot reliably enroll in it. Programs are ordered by the number of master’s graduates each university reported to the federal IPEDS survey for 2023 under CIP code 13.1101, which measures size, not quality. That count covers the whole university, so a school running more than one school counseling master’s program reports them together, and a low count can mean some graduates are reported under a different code. Treat the order as a rough guide to size rather than a ranking. CACREP accreditation is not the same as state approval: check the Louisiana requirements for school counselor certification before you enroll.
- Steady openings: Louisiana projects about 400 school and career counselor openings a year from 2024 to 2034, most of them from turnover rather than new positions.
- Pay below the national median, with a wide range: The state median is $61,870 (May 2025) against $64,330 nationally, and among the metros shown, medians run from $57,930 in Baton Rouge to $87,940 in Lake Charles.
- Heavy caseloads: Louisiana averaged about 423 students per counselor in 2024-25, well above ASCA’s 250:1 recommendation.
- Two certification routes: Teachers can add a School Counselor (K-12) endorsement, and non-teachers can pursue the Ancillary School Counselor (K-12) certificate, both issued by the Louisiana Department of Education.
- Nine accredited programs: Louisiana has nine CACREP-accredited school counseling master’s programs, from Hammond and New Orleans to Natchitoches and Monroe.
Thinking about the path? Start with the steps: the master’s degree, the fieldwork, and which Louisiana certificate fits your background.
