Utah School Counselor
Utah school counselors earn a median salary of $61,320 (May 2025), slightly below the national median of $64,330. The state projects about 380 job openings a year from 2024 to 2034. You’ll need a master’s in school counseling and a Utah school counselor license. One CACREP-accredited program in the state offers the degree.
Utah Links
Utah employs about 4,070 educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors, a federal category that includes school counselors (May 2025). The state builds the job around college and career readiness, and Utah has the highest projected growth rate of any state for this occupation in the 2024-2034 projections round. Before you can practice, you’ll need a school counseling master’s program that leads to a Utah school counselor license.
What School Counselors Do in Utah
Utah school counselors work within the Utah K-12 Comprehensive School Counseling Program, the Utah State Board of Education’s framework, which uses the ASCA National Model as its base. Its 2024 edition organizes student development into four domains: academic and learning, life and career, citizenship, and health and wellness. College and career readiness runs through all four.
In practice, no two weeks look the same. Take Mia, a junior at a high school in West Jordan. She’s been cutting class, and her grades have slipped. Her counselor doesn’t just send a warning notice. She sits down with Mia, learns that her part-time job expanded after a parent’s hours were cut, and works with her teachers on a temporary adjusted schedule while connecting the family to district support resources. That’s what responsive services look like on the ground.
At the elementary level, the work looks different. A counselor in Ogden might spend the morning teaching a classroom lesson on handling frustration, then meet with a second grader whose family just moved into a shelter. The goal is the same as with Mia: keep the student in school and learning.
Utah’s model also leans heavily on data. Counselors track academic trends across their caseload, flag students who’ve fallen behind on graduation requirements, and build targeted plans to close gaps. That means more planning and documentation than many people expect from this role.
Caseloads vary by district and school level. Utah requires schools that receive state school counseling program funds to keep the ratio at no more than one counselor per 350 students, while ASCA recommends one per 250. At that size, much of the job is deciding who needs attention first, so go in with realistic expectations about what one person can cover in a day.
Getting into the role takes a master’s in school counseling. Utah school counselor licenses are issued by the Utah State Board of Education, which says there’s no alternate pathway to a professional license. Related master’s degrees, such as those leading to LPC or LCSW licensure, don’t meet the requirement.
Job Outlook in Utah
Utah has the highest projected growth rate of any state for this occupation in the 2024-2034 projections round. Employment is expected to grow 21.3% over that decade, compared with 3.5% nationwide over the same period. That works out to about 380 job openings a year, a mix of new positions and replacements for counselors who retire or leave the field.
Most of those jobs sit along the Wasatch Front. In May 2025, BLS counted about 1,430 workers in this occupation in the Salt Lake City-Murray metro, 870 in Provo-Orem-Lehi, and 650 in Ogden. Smaller metros like Logan and St. George employ a few hundred each, and rural districts hire too.
School Counselor Salary in Utah
Utah’s median salary for this occupation is $61,320 (May 2025), slightly below the national median of $64,330 for school counselors. These figures cover the federal category for educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors, which includes some workers outside K-12 schools. The spread is wide: the bottom 10% earn under $37,260, and the top 10% earn more than $101,780.
Location doesn’t move pay as much as you might expect. Ogden and Logan post the highest metro medians, while Salt Lake City sits slightly below the statewide figure. In public schools, your district’s salary schedule, which typically rewards experience and graduate credits, often matters more than the metro.
| Percentile | Annual Salary |
|---|---|
| 10th | $37,260 |
| 25th | $48,660 |
| Median (50th) | $61,320 |
| 75th | $80,610 |
| 90th | $101,780 |
| Metro Area | Median Salary |
|---|---|
| Ogden, UT | $64,240 |
| Logan, UT-ID | $63,900 |
| Salt Lake City-Murray, UT | $61,240 |
| Provo-Orem-Lehi, UT | $57,400 |
| St. George, UT | $56,120 |
CACREP-Accredited School Counseling Programs in Utah
Utah has one CACREP-accredited school counseling program. On state pages with more than one, we list programs by number of graduates, which measures size, not quality.
| Institution | City | Degree | Accredited Through | Master’s Graduates (2023) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions | Provo | M.S. | October 31, 2031 | 22 |
Utah also approves school counselor preparation programs that aren’t CACREP-accredited, so this table isn’t the full list of routes to a Utah license. The Utah State Board of Education publishes the in-state programs it approves.
Utah’s College and Career Readiness requirement
Utah law has required school counselors to earn a College and Career Readiness (CCR) credential since Utah Code § 53F-5-204 was amended in March 2020, and the state board’s September 2026 guide says that starting in the 2026-27 school year, every school counselor must hold the CCR endorsement to be fully qualified. Recent graduates of Utah programs are recommended for it by their university. Counselors trained out of state start on an Associate Educator License, valid for up to three years, and must complete the CCR program within that window to earn a Professional Educator License.
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 Utah requirements for school counselor certification before you enroll.
- Strongest projected growth of any state: Utah projects about 380 openings a year and 21.3% growth from 2024 to 2034, against 3.5% nationally over the same period.
- Pay close to the national figure: The May 2025 median is $61,320, and Ogden and Logan post the highest metro medians.
- Readiness-centered work: Utah’s framework, built on the ASCA National Model, puts college and career readiness at the center of the job.
- One CACREP program, more approved routes: Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions is CACREP-accredited through October 2031, and the state approves other preparation programs too.
- CCR endorsement required: Utah law requires it, and the state board says every counselor needs it to be fully qualified starting in 2026-27.
Comparing programs, or still deciding whether this path fits? The step-by-step guide walks through the degree, fieldwork, and licensing in order.
