My D16 is aiming to complete an MSW degree to enter a career as a school social worker and psychotherapist for youth. Folks are telling her that she might not be able to afford grad school for such a low-paying field. Any advice for her (and me as we attempt to weigh her undergrad options)? Are there any sources she should be using to research this?
Try to get out of undergrad with no debt. Work for a couple of years to save for grad school before applying.
So, don’t go straight into an MSW program right out of undergrad? How much annual salary (urban) would be needed to bridge to grad school? How could even be saved if working in a BA-level job prior to grad school?
I’ll be super honest. I would not advise my kids to go into this field for precisely the concerns you have. It is very difficult to justify the cost given the low salaries. If my kid insisted, I’d suggest they double major in undergrad with something they can earn money in with a BA. Then work and save for a few years (live at home if your parents will let you), then apply to grad schools. She probably can’t have everything she wants and come out without a ton of debt.
If undergrad results in zero debt (that’s a plan already), what’s prudent for funding the MSW? (One consideration is taking a BSW, which shaves one year off a two-year MSW program because of advanced standing granted, if I understand It all correctly.)
Does this seem accurate? $40,000 COA per year for an MSW?
Hmm. I’m seeing that perhaps loan forgiveness or income-based repayment schemes should be considered for an MSW degree and LCSW career. Seems chancey, though, to count on those student debt-management (?) programs.
Sadly, I kind of agree with @intparent. I think social workers are tremendously important, but it seems like there are only two kinds of students who can keep their debt on the MSW low enough to make it work: 1) students who can live at home while attending an MSW program at an in-state public, or 2) students from wealthy families whose parents are footing the bill (or who are independently wealthy themselves and are paying in cash).
MSWs are almost always funded primarily through loans. The BLS says that the median annual salary for social workers is $44,200. It’s generally recommended that you don’t take on any more debt than your first year salary, because that’s the threshold at which you can comfortably repay your debt.
Often the tuition and fees for an MSW program at the local public can be about $7,000 to $15,000 per year, depending on whether it’s a regional campus or a flagship. That’s about $14,000 to $30,000 of debt for an MSW if the student can commute from home and pay very little in living expenses, which is a doable amount of debt to repay on that kind of salary. One thing to remember is that working even part-time during the MSW is difficult because it’s a pretty demanding program that involves a fieldwork placement - so classes plus fieldwork often take up most 9-5 hours, and sometimes the fieldwork placement is a far trip away from campus. I did have some friends who worked part-time (20 hours) during their MSW programs, and they were exhausted. One friend attended the CSSW in Manhattan but her fieldwork placement was in Brooklyn and it took her I think about 3 hours round-trip to travel there.
@dyiu13, an alternative is for your daughter to consider a career as a school psychologist. School psychologists can practice with a specialist-level master’s or EdS (check out the National Association of School Psychologists’ website; it explains the degrees there), and their median salary is around $67,000 - and they can make far more in certain districts (although this varies widely: in some districts they are paid on the teachers’ salary schedule, and in others they are paid on the same salary schedule as the social workers).
Another alternative, if she’s so inclined, is to become a psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner and establish a practice that focuses on children and adolescents. NPs are advanced practice nurses with master’s degrees (and in some cases a Doctorate of Nursing Practice, or DNP, which usually takes 3-4 years beyond the bachelor’s), and they can diagnose and conduct mental health therapy but they can also prescribe psychiatric medication. Nurse practitioners average around $90,000 a year, and the demand for them is through the roof. The upside to this is that 1) she could still work in children’s mental health as a BSN-prepared nurse before she got the MSN, in case she decides she needs a break between college and grad school; 2) MSN programs are very easily completed part-time - many of them are designed for working adults - meaning that she can work part- or full-time as a nurse while she does her MSN, keeping costs low; and 3) many hospitals will pay for nurses to finish advanced degrees like an MSN.
Possibly, if she can have an employer that can help subsidize her to go to school and get her master’s while she works after she gets her bachelor’s degree. I agree that social workers are very needed but terribly under-paid. I majored in sociology and then went to law school. Now that I’m semi-retired, am working at a non-profit I formed with a lot of people in public health and social work. Most of them make very low salaries and there is a lot of job turnover.
I would strongly advise her to keep her educational debt as low as possible.
Very sobering, but very helpful info. Many thanks.
I doubt D16 will welcome the news that she’s have to be living at home for the next 6-8 years (apparently there’s a 2-year post MSW stint of supervised work prior to taking the exam for LCSW or similar, depending on the state). But, us parents would permit her to live here with us.
She was hoping to work as a middle or high school social worker for a period before transitioning into a community-based youth psychotherapist career.
I don’t know that this kid would manage nursing school. I’ll definitely suggest the master’s-level school psychologist alternative, but I think she’ll be concerned that she’d be locked into working for a public or private school for her entire career when her ultimate goal is to do individual mental health therapy for teens.
She definitely needs to get this research done before May when she has to pick a college for undergrad. At the moment, she’s applying as a Psych major or a SW major.
It’s kinda heart-breaking that there are careers that require master’s and licensure, but barely pay basic living expenses.
H just finished MSW for clinical practice. Private grad schools were out of the question so he looked into state schools which were half the cost. He took out about half of the tuition and costs in loans but was lucky enough to go to Hunter’s program which allows you to keep a paying job and consider it your internship. Her employer would have to agree to the deal, and Hunter would establish a partnership with them.
The loans have been reduced 75% thru a govt program which will forgive debt IF – and she has to know this – she is working in a priority area in a social service job which is approved by the program. (Don’t assume that it will be logical: H could not get approved for our county but he did get approved for an identical job in the neighboring county.) She can do this for 10 years. After 10 years the slate is wiped clean.
Another option she can explore is that the Dept of Human Services often pays tuition for their employees to get an MSW. It is a tough tough road to travel because she would have to do some real grunt work with extremely difficult conditions (huge caseload and few resources). I believe this depends on the state she works in? I do know a social worker who got her degree this way.
D is following in her father’s footsteps. So we are in the same boat. H will not make more than $45 K for a long, long time. But it is actually a substantial increase for us compared to our previous social service. She can find satisfaction and wonderful work but it really will be helpful for her to get her degree now, before mortgages, etc. Good for your D – it is a noble calling!
PS Geriatric and medical-related social work is a huge need for the future.
VA too, I would guess!
I think the two-year post-MSW supervised work is paid, or can be paid. You just have to be “supervised” by a licensed MSW, but you’re still providing services and still getting paid - albeit just lower than you would were you licensed. It’s kind of like a residency for a physician.
Another option, though I am hesitant to suggest it, is getting a PhD in counseling psychology. I suggest it because most PhDs are fully-funded - your D would get tuition and fees covered plus a smallish stipend on which to live (usually between $25K and $30K). The plus side is also that doctoral-level education is often a requirement to practice independently in many states; even MSWs sometimes have to practice “under the supervision” of a doctorally-prepared person (what that means varies by state). Psychologists also tend to get paid more. She could attend one of the [APA-accredited combined programs](APA-accredited combined programs) and become qualified in school and counseling, which would allow her to work for a few years as a school psychologist before transitioning into that community-based youth psychotherapist career. I do believe that school psychologists with a PhD can practice privately, too, although I’d check what their scope of practice is before investigating this.
The reason I hesitate to suggest it is because PhDs are 1) longer than MSW programs, of course - 5 years + a clinical internship instead of just 2, and the clinical internship is sometimes not paid and 2) PhDs are designed to be research degrees. They are scientist-practitioner models, usually - so the idea is to train someone who is equally qualified to be a scientist in the field of counseling and a practitioner. So if your D is not interested in doing research at all, that could be an issue. (If she wouldn’t mind doing some research that’s applied and related to the practice of counseling for 5 years, then it could work. I have a friend who just finished a PhD in social work, which is kind of similar in spirit, and her dissertation research is on a therapeutic technique with patients in the criminal justice system.)
(Note: I suggest counseling psychology because clinical psychology is very, very competitive. Counseling is less so, but the scope of practice is pretty much the same. She’d have to attend an APA-accredited program; there’s a list on the website.)
Buuut she doesn’t need to get the research done before May. This is a long way off, and she doesn’t have to make her undergraduate selections on this basis. She should probably minimize debt regardless of what she plans to do, because she could always change her mind. Even if she did take on a little bit, she could make the choice to work for a few years post-undergrad to pay it off before returning for the MSW. And either a psychology major or a social work major will prepare her well for an MSW (although of course the SW major comes with the benefit of advanced standing in most MSW programs, and the psychology major would be better if she decided to do a PhD in counseling or school psychology).
One last thing - if she is considering the PhD in psychology at all, she will need to get at least 2 years’ worth of research experience in undergrad. That is something to consider when picking undergrad colleges; you’ll want to pick one that offers the opportunity to do that (although the vast majority of schools do - including LACs and regional state universities - so don’t feel compelled to pick a large research university because of that). But I’m just telling you upfront so she can be prepared.
Thank you so much. She is not keen on doing a PhD, but she needs to consider the financial side of the decision. Hmmm.
At the moment she’s very committed to the prospect of an undergrad program and its subsequent advanced standing MSW (with a school SW cert) at a specific private local college. Problem is…it’s not local enough to live at home. She’d get 4 years of free tuition through my employer, but we would have to pay the rest of the COA. Room & board is about $10K. She’s hoping to get an RA job after freshman year, but I don’t know if that’s even likely. Later, She’s be looking at about $25K in tuition for the AS MSW at that school.
I’ll try to show her all the different scenarios’ financial implications. Try to loosen her grip on her first-choice school (the one above).
For example, now that I understand she’ll be relying on loans mainly for an MSW, if she lived at home for undergrad and has free tuition at a nearby school, which does not have a BSW program, she would later aim for the commuter state uni for an MSW for two years at about $30K total tuition (living at home for that degree too). That grad program is about $15K per year.
But, of course, it’d probably be very good developmentally for this kid, an only child, to do residential undergrad – but not if it burdens her with debt.
Argh. This is a brutal process.
I work with MSW students, and professionals. They are grossly overworked and significantly underpaid.
Given that I am in California, we get deluged, daily, with faxed MSW resumes from people who think that coming to California will serve as an additional increase in pay, and solve their financial problems.
The Masters candidates try to get a job onsite, but we just don’t have the positions or finances for them. After rents and expenses, these SW’s don’t make enough money to save for homes.
You will be supporting your child for the rest of your life if she goes into this field. It’s an honorable field; it just doesn’t pay enough.
I’ve now found a few SW career and grad school forums online, and it all seems brutal – the work, the work environments, the student debt, and the pay.
Now, I’m wondering what salary is considered “enough” for kids graduating from undergrad in 2020. A 10-years-into-career individual income should be - what? - to live the basic American Dream. $50K, $75? If so, that’s apparently unlikely for a LCSW?
Also, in terms of the job market…should I assume that over the next 10 years there will be more MSW grads than there are jobs? I wonder who has the best. SW labor market data on that, broken down by state projections.
At this point, I wish she’d consider psych nursing. No way, says she.
It really depends on the area of the country she hopes to settle into.
My kid, with her BS in Engineering/software is at $70K more or less; she is trying to save money for a down payment on a house.
She did buy a new car and pays her personal bills: phone, clothing, food. She could move out and get a cheap apartment, but she’s rather put that money into a property. She gets yearly raises and promotions, so I don’t know where she’s really at.
If your daughter goes into School Psychologist, she will start at ~$63K, depending on where she is on the scale (in California). Social workers, at my facility start at ~$40K.
She considered the certified master-level school psychologist as noted by @juillet, but has decided against that because she does not want to work in a school her whole career. Also, she definitely does not want to pursue the doctorate she’d have to get as school psychologist in order to be liscenced to work as an individual therapist outside a school. At least in our state.
So, she’s now back at the LCSW goal with the long-term aim of being a psychotherapist after working first as a school SW. She doesn’t seem interested in the higher-paying medical/hospital or Veterans Administration SW jobs.
I’m feeling a lot of empathy right now with parents of kids going into the fine arts or ministry…as well as social work. Wondering: How are these kids going to make a decent living?!
She won’t make a decent living and will be relying on your help constantly. You either have to help her with living expenses, or you cut her off completely and have her fend for herself.
As for her being a school social worker, a lot of school districts don’t have their own Social Workers because it’s not in the budget. One social worker might serve the entire district. Our local school district had 28K kids. No social worker. Have her go to a school district web site, then have her look for staff listings of district social worker.
Social workers, in our school districts, were provided by the community clinical providers (Medi-cal, insurance) and came once a year for meetings. They did most of their work at the home of the client and that was sporadically.
(The School Psych education takes the same amount of time that an MSW would take. School psychs get paid more and actually serve kids directly, on campus. School psychs, depending on the size of the school are typically on site, at least 3 days per week. The school psychs that I worked with usually covered two schools. The jobs are steady. )
Sorry if I am over-stepping, but this sounds like one stubborn kid. If she is only going to school to get her MRS degree, she needs to tell you that she wants you to pay for her full education and her future.
I’m dealing with a very similar situation with my daughter who wants to do pharmacy. She’s been talking to starry-eyed hopefuls who are in grad school. They love the major, and are aware that there are no jobs, but choose to do it anyway. We’re hoping our child does a couple of internships with real “pharmacists” who will tell her and show her the truth because she doesn’t believe us.