Pennsylvania School Counselor
School counselors in Pennsylvania work with students from pre-K through 12th grade. The May 2025 median wage is $60,880, and the state projects about 960 job openings a year from 2024 to 2034. The standard pathway requires completing an approved graduate-level school counselor preparation program and meeting Pennsylvania certification requirements. Thirteen CACREP-accredited programs operate in the state.
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Pennsylvania expects about 960 openings a year for school and career counselors from 2024 to 2034, most of them created by people retiring or leaving the field. If you’re weighing this career in the Keystone State, here’s what the job looks like, what it pays, and where you can train.
What School Counselors Do in Pennsylvania
A seventh-grader at a Philadelphia middle school starts skipping first period. Her grades slip. Her homeroom teacher flags it, but she’s managing 150 students and doesn’t have time to dig into what’s behind the change. The school counselor steps in, meets with the student one-on-one, loops in her parents, and works with her teachers on a short-term support plan. Within a few weeks, the picture gets clearer: things at home got chaotic after a parent lost a job. The counselor connects the family with district resources and adjusts the student’s schedule to ease the pressure. That’s a routine week, not an exceptional one.
Pennsylvania school counselors work across the three domains of the ASCA National Model: academic development, career planning, and social-emotional health. At the elementary level, counselors spend much of their time on classroom lessons about conflict resolution, self-regulation and early college awareness. In middle and high school, the work shifts toward individual planning, crisis response, and helping students get ready for college or work.
The range is wide. A high school counselor in Pittsburgh might spend the morning reviewing graduation requirements with juniors, the afternoon in a crisis meeting with a student a teacher is worried about, and an hour on the phone with a university admissions office sorting out a scholarship question. No two days look the same, and with the caseloads described below, managing your time is part of the job.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) certifies school counselors. The current credential is the Educational Specialist I certificate in Elementary and Secondary School Counselor PK-12, and some working counselors still hold older grade-specific certificates, such as Elementary K-6 or Secondary 7-12, which may remain valid. The standard pathway requires completing an approved graduate-level school counselor preparation program and meeting Pennsylvania certification requirements, including background clearances and meeting Pennsylvania Department of Education testing requirements, unless an exemption applies. Alternative pathways may apply in some cases. This is an educator certificate, separate from the Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) license for clinical counseling, and the Pennsylvania school counselor certification page walks through each requirement.
Job Outlook in Pennsylvania
The Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry projects about 960 openings a year for educational, guidance, school and vocational counselors from 2024 to 2034. Fewer than 50 of those come from new positions. The rest open up as counselors retire, leave the workforce or move into other jobs. Employment in the occupation is projected to grow 4.1% over the same period, a little above the 3.5% projected nationally for 2024 to 2034.
The harder story is staffing. ASCA recommends one counselor for every 250 students, and Pennsylvania’s statewide ratio was 317 students per counselor in the 2024-2025 school year, based on federal data compiled by ASCA. The gaps are wider building by building. A Pennsylvania School Counselors Association staffing report, using 2021-2022 state data, found 192 public school district buildings with no school counselor listed, most of them elementary schools. That’s a real strain for the counselors who are there, and it’s part of why state lawmakers keep returning to school counseling legislation (see the note on HB 2218 below).
School Counselor Salary in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania’s May 2025 median wage of $60,880 sits about $3,450 below the national median of $64,330. BLS reports these figures for educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors, a group that includes school counselors along with college advisors and career counselors, so treat them as a close guide rather than a district pay scale.
| Percentile | Annual Salary |
|---|---|
| 10th | $46,200 |
| 25th | $51,160 |
| Median (50th) | $60,880 |
| 75th | $78,460 |
| 90th | $97,810 |
Where you work matters more than the statewide number. In May 2025, York-Hanover’s median ran more than $15,000 above the state figure, and the Philadelphia metro sat about $5,300 above it.
| Metro Area | Median Salary |
|---|---|
| York-Hanover, PA | $76,360 |
| Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD | $66,190 |
| Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ | $63,590 |
| Harrisburg-Carlisle, PA | $63,500 |
| Pittsburgh, PA | $59,560 |
| Scranton–Wilkes-Barre, PA | $59,220 |
Salary sites built on self-reported pay often show lower figures for Philadelphia. Those numbers come from base salaries entered by individual users, while BLS surveys employers across the whole occupation group. For a specific job, the district’s own salary schedule is the most reliable source.
CACREP-Accredited School Counseling Programs in Pennsylvania
Thirteen universities in Pennsylvania offer CACREP-accredited school counseling master’s programs. The table orders them by the number of master’s graduates each university reported for 2023. Those counts cover the whole university rather than one program, and they show size, not quality.
CACREP accreditation does not automatically make you eligible for Pennsylvania school counselor certification. Confirm PDE approval and certification eligibility before enrolling.
| Institution | City | Degree | Accredited Through | Master’s Graduates (2023) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pennsylvania Western University | Edinboro | M.S. | March 31, 2033 | 72 |
| West Chester University | West Chester | M.Ed. | October 31, 2034 | 33 |
| Villanova University | Villanova | M.S. | October 31, 2032 | 32 |
| Pennsylvania State University | University Park | M.Ed. | October 31, 2027 | 27 |
| Kutztown University | Kutztown | M.S. | March 31, 2033 | 24 |
| Duquesne University | Pittsburgh | M.S.Ed. | April 30, 2034 | 16 |
| Gwynedd Mercy University | Gwynedd Valley | M.S. | October 31, 2032 | 10 |
| University of Scranton | Scranton | M.S. | October 31, 2031 | 7 |
| Marywood University | Scranton | M.S. | April 30, 2034 | 6 |
| Indiana University of Pennsylvania | Indiana | M.Ed. | October 31, 2027 | 5 |
| Shippensburg University | Shippensburg | M.S. | October 31, 2027 | 3 |
Geneva College in Beaver Falls is also CACREP-accredited, through April 30, 2033. It does not report graduates under the federal code used here, so it is listed separately rather than placed in the size order.
Messiah University in Mechanicsburg is also CACREP-accredited, through October 31, 2028. It does not report graduates under the federal code used here, so it is listed separately rather than placed in the size order.
Six programs carry a qualifier on their CACREP status. CACREP lists Duquesne University and Geneva College as Accredited (Progress Report Required). Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University and Shippensburg University are listed as Accredited (Reaffirmation in Process), with current cycles ending October 31, 2027. Pennsylvania Western University is listed as Accredited (Progress Report Required with a Notice of Concern), with its current cycle ending March 31, 2033.
Pennsylvania’s House passed a school counseling bill in 2026
House Bill 2218, the School Counseling Services Act, passed the Pennsylvania House 106-95 on April 29, 2026, and went to the Senate Education Committee. It would require schools to adopt a written K-12 counseling plan, carried out by Pennsylvania-certified school counselors, that gives counselors most of their work time for serving students instead of covering other duties. As of October 8, 2026, the bill had not passed the Senate and is not law, so it doesn’t change anything for working counselors yet. Bills that don’t pass both chambers by the end of the 2025-2026 session must be reintroduced.
How this table was built. CACREP accredits every program here 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. Where a university reports no graduates under that code, we name it below the table rather than place it in the order. CACREP accreditation is not the same as state approval: check the Pennsylvania requirements for school counselor certification before you enroll.
- Openings, not hype: Pennsylvania projects about 960 openings a year from 2024 to 2034, and nearly all of them come from counselors retiring or changing careers.
- A PDE certificate with wide scope: PDE’s Educational Specialist I school counselor certificate covers pre-K through 12th grade, and it’s separate from the LPC license for clinical counseling.
- Location drives pay: The May 2025 statewide median is $60,880, with York-Hanover at $76,360 and the Philadelphia metro at $66,190.
- Thirteen accredited programs: CACREP accreditation doesn’t by itself establish PDE certification eligibility, so confirm both before you apply.
- Policy is moving: HB 2218 passed the House in April 2026 and, as of October 8, 2026, is waiting on the Senate.
Comparing programs? Start with what Pennsylvania requires before and after the degree, from fieldwork hours to the certificate itself.
