Minnesota·Community and Social Service Occupations·SOC 21-1012

Best Educational programs in Minnesota, ranked by enrollment

Advise and assist students and provide educational and vocational guidance.

6 schools in Minnesota run programs that feed this job, graduating 652 people a year. The job pays a median of $64,600 in Minnesota across about 4,200 jobs (BLS OEWS May 2025).

Also calledAcademic AdvisorCareer CounselorSchool CounselorGuidance CounselorAdvisorCounselorJob CoachCareer Coach
Graduates / yr
652
in Minnesota
Median pay · Minnesota
$64,600
BLS OEWS May 2025
Jobs in state
4,200
people employed
Schools
6
with a feeder program
Avg graduation rate
46%
across those schools
Median net price
$19,369
per year, IPEDS

Fields of study in Minnesota that lead to this job

Grouped at the 4-digit CIP level. Numbers are graduates per year in this state.

3 programs in Minnesota that lead to this job

Ranked by graduates per year in Minnesota (IPEDS completions). Graduate earnings and debt are national College Scorecard figures reported at the 4-digit CIP level, so specializations within one field share a figure. Each program also links to its own Minnesota page.

Degree programs that lead to this occupation, ranked by graduates per year
#ProgramGraduates / yrShare of pipelineSchoolsGrad earnings (1 yr)Median debt
1
CIP 13.1101In Minnesota
518
79.4%
6$58,038
2
CIP 42.2805In Minnesota
116
17.8%
3$33,805$27,000
3
CIP 13.1102In Minnesota
18
2.8%
2$58,038

Top 6 schools in Minnesota

Ranked by graduates per year into this job. Graduate earnings are reported for 0 of the 6 schools in this state.

Schools ranked by graduates per year into this occupation
#SchoolGraduates / yrTop feeder programGrad earnings (1 yr)Grad rateNet priceAcceptance
1Capella University
Minneapolis, MN Private for-profit · 2 feeder programs
335Counselor Education/School Counseling and Guidance Services20%$19,369
2Walden University
Minneapolis, MN Private for-profit · 1 feeder programs
198Counselor Education/School Counseling and Guidance Services
3Minnesota State University Moorhead
Moorhead, MN Public · 2 feeder programs
76Counselor Education/School Counseling and Guidance Services57%59%
4Minnesota State University - Mankato
Mankato, MN Public · 3 feeder programs
22School Psychology54%88%
5Saint Cloud State University
Saint Cloud, MN Public · 2 feeder programs
16College Student Counseling and Personnel Services40%95%
6Winona State University
Winona, MN Public · 1 feeder programs
5Counselor Education/School Counseling and Guidance Services57%75%

All 6 schools in Minnesota

Every school in Minnesota with a program that feeds this job, ordered by graduates per year. Earnings are shown for the ranked schools above; open a school profile for the rest.

All schools in Minnesota that feed this occupation
SchoolCityControlGraduates / yrFeeder programs
Capella UniversityMinneapolisPrivate for-profit3352
Walden UniversityMinneapolisPrivate for-profit1981
Minnesota State University MoorheadMoorheadPublic762
Minnesota State University - MankatoMankatoPublic223
Saint Cloud State UniversitySaint CloudPublic162
Winona State UniversityWinonaPublic51

What educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors earn in Minnesota

What people already working in this job earn (BLS OEWS May 2025). Not graduate earnings.

Median annual in Minnesota
$64,600
Mean annual
$69,080
Jobs in state
4,200
What the range looks like
10th pct$47,870Median$64,60090th pct$94,100
Versus the national median
+0.4%

U.S. median $64,330. Minnesota pays above the national figure.

Job concentration
0.63×

1.00× means the state has its expected share of these jobs.

Metro areas in Minnesota

Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI
$64,600median
3,050 jobs
Rochester, MN
$66,570median
120 jobs
St. Cloud, MN
$64,910median
110 jobs
Duluth, MN-WI
$59,280median
260 jobs
Mankato, MN
$62,440median
100 jobs

Job outlook

Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections, 2024 to 2034.

Projected growth 2024–34
+3.5%
About as fast as average
Openings per year
31,000
new jobs plus replacements
Employment change
13,300
376,300 → 389,600
Typical entry education
Master's degree

Growth and openings are national. The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not publish employment projections at state level, so these figures describe the occupation across the whole U.S., not this state alone.

How to get in

The full skills, tools, and day-to-day breakdown lives on the national Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors page.

How to become a Educational

Job zone 5 of 5 · SVP 8.0 and above
Typical entry education
Master's degree

Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).

Extensive skill, knowledge, and experience are needed for these occupations. Many require more than five years of experience. For example, surgeons must complete four years of college and an additional five to seven years of specialized medical training to be able to do their job.

Employees may need some on-the-job training, but most of these occupations assume that the person will already have the required skills, knowledge, work-related experience, and/or training.

Top skills

Active ListeningSpeakingCritical ThinkingReading ComprehensionWritingMonitoring

The same job in other states

Where else this occupation employs the most people, and what it pays there.

Related careers in Minnesota

Every major mapped to this job

The official federal mapping behind the rankings above.

All 5 majors mapped to Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors5 of them graduated someone in the latest IPEDS year. NCES CIP 2020 → SOC 2018 crosswalk.+
  • 13.1101Counselor Education/School Counseling and Guidance Services
  • 13.1102College Student Counseling and Personnel Services
  • 13.1199Student Counseling and Personnel Services, Other
  • 42.2805School Psychology
  • 52.1006Executive/Career Coaching

Common questions

Answers for people weighing educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors programs in Minnesota.

What degree do you need to become an Educational?+

Master's degree is the typical entry-level education BLS reports for this occupation. The most common program people actually graduate from is Counselor Education/School Counseling and Guidance Services, which awarded 518 degrees in Minnesota in 2024-25, 79.4% of everyone graduating from a program that feeds this career.

Which college majors lead to becoming an Educational?+

The NCES CIP-to-SOC crosswalk maps 3 programs to this occupation. The largest are Student Counseling and Personnel Services, Clinical. Together they graduate about 652 people a year in Minnesota.

How much do educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors earn in Minnesota?+

The median is $64,600 a year (BLS OEWS May 2025). That is 0.4% above the U.S. median of $64,330. This is pay for people already working in the occupation, not the same thing as graduate earnings one year after finishing a degree.

Is demand for educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors growing?+

BLS projects a +3.5% change in employment between 2024 and 2034, about as fast as average, with roughly 31,000 openings a year nationally once retirements and job changes are counted.

How many schools offer programs for this career in Minnesota?+

6 institutions in Minnesota reported graduates from at least one of the 3 programs that feed this occupation in IPEDS 2024-25. Rankings on this page use graduates per year, because the federal data publishes no enrollment count by program.

What other job titles do educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors work under?+

Employers advertise this work under many names. O*NET records Academic Advisor, Career Counselor, School Counselor, Guidance Counselor among the most commonly reported, all mapping to SOC 21-1012.

Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors in other statesCaliforniaNew YorkTexasVirginiaNorth CarolinaNew JerseyPennsylvaniaWisconsin

About the data on this page

Rankings use IPEDS completions 2024–25, degrees awarded per year. That is the closest federal measure of how many people a program puts into a career, because no federal dataset publishes enrollment by program. Wages and employment come from BLS OEWS May 2025, growth and openings from BLS Employment Projections 2024-34, and which majors lead to which jobs from the NCES CIP 2020 to SOC 2018 crosswalk. Occupation descriptions, tasks, skills and tools are O*NET 30.3 (CC BY 4.0, U.S. Department of Labor/ETA).

  • BLS Occupational Employment & Wage Statistics

    May 2025

    Wages, employment counts, location quotients and metro breakdowns.

  • BLS Employment Projections

    2024–34

    Projected growth, annual openings and typical entry-level education.

  • IPEDS Completions

    2024-25 (provisional)

    Graduates per year by program and institution — the ranking metric.

  • College Scorecard, Field of Study

    2020-21 cohorts

    Median graduate earnings one year after completion, and median debt.

  • Census Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes

    latest available

    Graduate earnings 1/5/10 years out, where the state participates.

  • NCES CIP 2020 and the CIP-to-SOC 2018 crosswalk

    CIP 2020 / SOC 2018

    Which college programs officially lead to this occupation.

  • O*NET Database 30.3

    30.3

    Tasks, skills, knowledge, tools, job zone and alternate job titles.

    Official source →CC BY 4.0, U.S. Department of Labor / ETA

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