What Pastoral Counseling and Specialized Ministries Graduates Earn

Median earnings at 1, 4, and 5 years (College Scorecard)

Nothing on this page is a survey response or a recruiter's claim: the $33,735 year-one median and the $43,093 year-five median for Pastoral Counseling and Specialized Ministries come from federal earnings records pooled across 170 bachelor's programs. The headline median weights programs by graduates counted (663 at year one); the second column is the unweighted median program, printed so the method stays visible.

From $33,735 in the first year to $43,093 in the fifth, earnings grow 28% ($9,358). For scale, the median bachelor's field in the Scorecard file grows from $45,010 to $65,763 over the same span, so this field's early-career slope is gentler than typical.

By Pell status, the year-one medians for Pastoral Counseling and Specialized Ministries are $35,732 (received Pell) and $36,021 (did not), $289 apart. The split is a reminder that a field median averages over very different starting points; the institution a student picks inside the field moves their personal figure more than the field label does.

Inside its own CIP family, Pastoral Counseling and Specialized Ministries ranks 3 of 3 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $47,064. Its closest sibling is Bible/Biblical Studies at $47,064, above this field's $43,093. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.

Ranked across all 182 published fields, Pastoral Counseling and Specialized Ministries stands number 182 by five-year earnings and number 172 by first-year earnings, and number 148 from the lowest median debt. Those three ranks together are the field's fingerprint: high earn rank with a low debt rank is the combination students are actually shopping for, and this field's spread between them is 34 places.

The debt side of the same degree

What does the median Pastoral Counseling and Specialized Ministries graduate owe? $23,555, the graduate-weighted median over 16 programs with published debt figures. The ratio that matters is debt to first-year earnings: 70%, or 8.4 months of gross pay at the $33,735 median. At the 2026-27 undergraduate loan rate of 6.52%, the standard decade of repayment is $268 a month with $8,569 of interest on top. Model a different balance in the student loan payoff calculator before you borrow it, and sanity-check the degree in the college major ROI calculator.

Where graduates of this field earn the most

One field, many markets: the five-year median for Pastoral Counseling and Specialized Ministries is $43,093 nationally, yet the strongest programs below run far ahead of it. The ranking keeps a 30-graduate floor under every entry, and Life Pacific University heads the list at $53,420.

Treat the top of this table as a research list, not a ranking to enroll by: medians reflect local labor markets and student mix as much as teaching. The honest comparison pairs each program's earnings here with its net price from the net price estimator and its four-year total from the degree cost calculator.

Two more facts about the shape of this field: the five highest-paying programs in the table account for only 32.1% of the 1,118 graduates counted at five years, so the top of the table is a thin slice and not the field's center; and the leading program's five-year median of $53,420 sits 24% above the national field median of $43,093. Its median debt, $25,000, runs above the field median of $23,555, which is the trade a student at the top of this table is actually being offered.