Nebraska School Counselor
Nebraska school counselors work with students from pre-K through 12th grade. Nebraska’s state projections show about 200 openings a year from 2024 to 2034, and the May 2025 median wage is $62,500. You’ll need an NDE certificate with a School Counselor endorsement, which requires Rule 24 graduate preparation and passing Praxis 5422. One CACREP-accredited program operates in the state.
Nebraska Links
Nebraska school counselors work everywhere from small Panhandle districts to large urban schools in Omaha and Lincoln. The work is demanding and varied: academic planning, social-emotional support, crisis response, and career development. Often one counselor covers hundreds of students. If you’re exploring this career path, here’s what the role actually looks like in Nebraska.
What School Counselors Do in Nebraska
Consider a sophomore at Lincoln High School who hasn’t turned in an assignment in three weeks. Her grades are slipping, and her teachers are concerned. The school counselor meets with her and learns she’s been picking up extra shifts to help her family with rent. The counselor connects her with the school’s emergency assistance fund and adjusts her schedule to ease the pressure during finals. Then the counselor checks in weekly for the rest of the semester. That’s the job in one interaction. And it’s rarely just one at a time.
Nebraska’s State Board of Education encourages districts to run a system-wide school counseling program built on a structured framework. These programs cover three domains: academic development, career readiness, and social/emotional growth. Counselors design and run these programs, not just respond to individual crises.
On any given day, a counselor might run a conflict-resolution group, then meet with a parent about an IEP. Later, they might flag eighth-graders who are off track to graduate and teach a lesson on application deadlines. The State Board encourages programs built directly on the ASCA National Model, a structured approach to building and managing a school counseling program.
The caseloads are real. ASCA recommends a 250:1 student-to-counselor ratio, but many Nebraska districts, especially rural ones, operate well above it. Counselors here need to triage, prioritize, and still show up for individual students when it matters. In Nebraska, the credential is a certificate from the Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) with a School Counselor endorsement. Rule 24 offers it at three levels: PK-8, 7-12, or PK-12. The PK-12 version is a field endorsement, while PK-8 and 7-12 are subject endorsements. Our Nebraska school counselor certification page covers the details.
Job Outlook in Nebraska
Nebraska’s long-term occupational projections, published through Projections Central, show about 200 school counselor job openings a year from 2024 to 2034. Employment is projected to rise 3.6% over that decade, or about 90 positions. BLS’s national projection for the same 2024-2034 period was 3.5%. Most Nebraska openings come from counselors who retire, change roles, or leave the field, not from new positions.
Where are the jobs? About 2,190 people worked in this occupation in Nebraska in May 2025. The Omaha metro, which crosses into Iowa, accounted for about 1,000 jobs in the same survey. Smaller districts compete for candidates in other ways. Lexington Public Schools, for example, advertises a residency incentive and tuition assistance for graduate coursework.
Browse the Nebraska Department of Education’s job board and you’ll see the credential districts look for. Omaha Public Schools asks candidates to hold, or be able to obtain, a Nebraska certificate with a school counseling endorsement. That doesn’t mean you must have taught first. Under Rule 24, the deciding factor is whether you already hold a teaching certificate with an endorsement. If you don’t, you’ll complete 12 additional graduate semester hours of professional teacher education coursework. Nebraska currently requires a qualifying score of 159 on the Praxis School Counselor test (5422). Our how-to-become page walks through both routes.
The State Board’s school counseling policy encourages every school to run a system-wide K-12 program, which helps keep counseling positions in place across the state.
School Counselor Salary in Nebraska
Nebraska’s median wage for this occupation was $62,500 in May 2025. That’s about $1,830 below the national median of $64,330. These BLS figures cover educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors. That includes some counselors who work outside K-12 schools. Earnings vary by district, location, and years of experience.
| Percentile | Annual Salary (May 2025) |
|---|---|
| 10th | $45,050 |
| 25th | $48,380 |
| Median (50th) | $62,500 |
| 75th | $80,180 |
| 90th | $100,160 |
Location shifts the picture. The Omaha metro sits above both the state and national medians, while Lincoln comes in well below the state figure. Grand Island’s figure stands out, but it rests on only about 90 workers. A few high earners can move it a lot. Pay in the rural areas outside the metros lands close to the statewide median.
| Area | Median Salary (May 2025) |
|---|---|
| Grand Island, NE | $109,480 |
| Northwest Nebraska (nonmetro) | $66,050 |
| Omaha, NE-IA | $65,330 |
| South Nebraska (nonmetro) | $62,900 |
| Northeast Nebraska (nonmetro) | $60,220 |
| Lincoln, NE | $55,510 |
CACREP-Accredited School Counseling Programs in Nebraska
One school counseling program in Nebraska holds CACREP accreditation. The table lists it with its 2023 graduate count, which measures size, not quality.
| Institution | City | Degree | Accredited Through | Master’s Graduates (2023) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wayne State College | Wayne | M.S.E. | March 31, 2033 | 17 |
CACREP describes Wayne State College’s program as digitally delivered, with multiple residencies in Wayne. The college says those residencies include weekend sessions. It also says students who don’t hold a teaching certificate can complete the program and earn the M.S.E. Those students still need Rule 24’s additional teacher education coursework before NDE issues the endorsement, covered on the certification page.
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 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 Nebraska requirements for school counselor certification before you enroll.
Nebraska now requires behavioral awareness training for school counselors
Beginning in school year 2026-27, Nebraska law requires each school district to ensure that each counselor receives behavioral awareness training. The same rule applies to administrators, teachers, paraprofessionals, and school nurses. Anyone who has received the training must get a behavioral awareness training review at least once every three years. The requirement is part of the Behavioral Intervention Training and Teacher Support Act, Neb. Rev. Stat. 79-3602. If a Nebraska school district hires you, this training comes with the job.
- Openings, not rapid growth: Nebraska’s state projections show about 200 openings a year from 2024 to 2034, mostly replacing counselors who leave.
- Pay below the national median: The May 2025 median of $62,500 trails the national $64,330, though Omaha comes in above both.
- The credential: You’ll need an NDE certificate with a PK-8, 7-12, or PK-12 School Counselor endorsement and a 159 on Praxis 5422. Without a prior teaching certificate, Rule 24 adds 12 graduate semester hours of teacher education coursework.
- One accredited program in state: Wayne State College’s M.S.E. is Nebraska’s CACREP-accredited school counseling program, in a low-residency format.
- New training rule: Beginning in 2026-27, each school district must ensure its counselors receive behavioral awareness training, reviewed at least every three years.
The first step is a graduate school counselor preparation program that satisfies Nebraska’s Rule 24 endorsement requirements. What you’ll need depends on whether you already hold a teaching certificate with an endorsement. The how-to-become page explains both routes.
