Affordable online mental health counseling master’s degrees (2026)

Fee units, residency eligibility, and placement conditions come from each school’s published terms:

Valdosta State University: Credits are semester credits. CACREP-accredited (cycle ends April 30, 2033). Courses are online, but students must come to campus at least twice. The program FAQ still describes accreditation as pending; the CACREP directory lists it as accredited. Online-only students who do not live on campus are assessed only the Online Learning Fee among mandatory fees, and that fee is $442 per semester, so it is billed by term rather than by credit and is not part of the published rate. Campus mandatory fees do not reach you unless you take credit hours on campus in Valdosta or live in a residence hall, and student health insurance is required only for named groups such as nursing majors, exercise physiology majors in an internship semester, international students and graduate assistants. The graduate fee schedule publishes no application fee, so ask the school for its fee list, and confirm that every course in your 60-credit plan is billed at the eTuition rate.

Angelo State University: Credits are semester credits. Angelo State says that this degree does not lead to licensure or certification — it is a helping-professionals degree, not a licensure track like the other programs compared here. The program page describes a separate 18-credit online LPC Bridge for students who later want Texas LPC licensure. The degree plan totals 30 credit hours, and the program page says the program can be completed 100% online in eight-week courses; neither page describes a campus visit. Online courses carry a $50-per-credit distance learning fee, shown as the per-credit fee. Other fees bill per semester, not per credit: a $92.90 medical services fee applies to all enrolled students, a student services fee is $26 per credit hour with a $100 minimum and $250 maximum per semester, and a technology service fee runs $85–$390 per semester by course load. Campus-use fees — athletics, recreation, the university center, transportation, the international education and outdoor facility conservation fees — only apply to students taking courses on the San Angelo campus. The schedule also lists a $50 state tuition rate for New Mexico or Oklahoma residents who live in a county bordering Texas; ask the school how it applies to you. The graduate application fee is $50 for U.S. citizens and $60 for international students. Ask the school for its fee list.

Lamar University: Credits are semester credits. Not listed in the CACREP directory when checked. Two 5-day face-to-face residencies are required on the Beaumont campus. Lamar’s own pages disagree about fees. The online program page says university fees are included in the $360 tuition listed and that the residency courses require additional fees not covered in tuition, while the counseling department’s residency page says there will be no additional conference fees associated with the course; the amount of any residency fee is not published. The general graduate schedule warns that tuition and fee rates can vary by student program, instructional method or campus location, and charges students billed at standard rates per-credit student service, athletic and institutional fees plus per-semester student center, health center and recreation center fees. Travel, meals and lodging for the residency weeks are yours to cover. Ask the school which fee schedule applies to you and for written confirmation that every course bills at the online rate, and the page does not name the academic year for this rate.

Fort Hays State University: Credits are semester credits. CACREP-accredited for digital delivery (cycle ends March 31, 2029). Coursework is online; practicum and internship take place at an approved site. The published online rate of $374.70 per credit covers tuition and fees and is the same wherever online students live. The board-approved 2026–2027 schedule lists no mandatory fee for online students other than the $142.33-per-credit International Fee for International Partners, and it states that online college and school fees, other fees, specialized program fees and online fees are none. A $40 domestic graduate application fee is charged once. The same schedule prints $150 and $300 field practicum fees without naming the counseling program, and the online FAQ warns that proctoring fees may be extra, so ask the school for its fee list.

Chadron State College: Credits are semester credits. CACREP-accredited (cycle ends March 31, 2032). Coursework is primarily online with some scheduled live sessions; fieldwork usually happens during daytime hours. The published online rate of $427.45 per credit hour is the graduate flat rate and is stated to be inclusive of tuition and fees, which the graduate catalog repeats as a combined tuition-and-fees flat rate for online courses. A separate Description of Fees lists a $7.10 health fee, a $7.00 student activity fee and a $72.30 college support and extended campus fee per credit hour, and department fees are described as variable, while the catalog notes that specific courses may have additional assessed fees; the system-wide 2026–2027 course-fee list contains no counseling course. No application or graduation fee amount is published, and the miscellaneous-fee list prints names without amounts, so ask the school for its fee list.

University of the Cumberlands: Credits are semester credits. CACREP-accredited for online delivery only (cycle ends March 31, 2033). Up to 18 semester hours may transfer if approved. The university sells the $449-per-credit counseling rate as its One Price Promise: one price for everything, all included, listing tuition, technology fees, academic resources, library access, counseling services fees and books inside that price. Outside it the page lists a $30 one-time application fee, a $300 non-refundable Executive Processing Fee whose programs are not named, and a $10 transcript fee, and students may opt out of the included digital textbooks. A bundle statement is not an itemized fee schedule, so ask the school for its fee list.

University of Charleston: Credits are semester credits. Not listed in the CACREP directory when checked. The university says the program has no in-person requirement and placements can be completed near home. The 2026–2027 cost sheet lists a $200 comprehensive fee for each semester, with only PharmD P4 and TA-funded military students named as exceptions, and a $200 graduation fee billed at the graduation application. Parking and student activity fees of $100 and $50 per semester are listed for Charleston location students, and additional lab or course fees may be charged. The cost sheet does not say whether the comprehensive fee reaches an online-only student, and it publishes no application fee, so ask the school for its fee list.

Northern State University: Credits are semester credits. CACREP-accredited (cycle ends April 30, 2034). Delivered HyFlex, with about three-quarters of classes synchronous. Beginning Fall 2026, two in-person residency sessions are required. The $495.70 online graduate rate is published as tuition only, but the school’s own Costs by Program table gives the counseling MSEd a 2026–2027 total of $29,742.00 labeled “Tuition and Fees”, which is exactly 60 times the per-credit rate and therefore contains no fee amount. The separate fee list publishes a $42.85-per-credit general activity fee for classes taught on campus, per-credit discipline fees of $27.30 for Counseling and $22.00 for E-Learning, and a $32.95-per-credit HyFlex delivery fee for any HyFlex course. The two pages disagree about which of these an online counseling student pays, so ask the school before relying on the smaller figure. A $40 graduate application fee is charged once, and a one-time $182 Master’s Level Internship charge is listed under the professional education majors fee.

Evangel University: Credits are semester credits. CACREP-accredited (cycle ends October 31, 2027). On-campus summer residencies of 3–4 days are required in the first and second years. The 2026–2027 program sheet lists tuition of $500 per credit hour, a $225 student fee and a $100 technology fee each semester, and estimates $1,555 in course and residency fees across the nine-semester plan, with books of about $1,350–$2,700 extra. Its own nine-semester estimate of $32,925 for tuition and university fees equals 60 credits at $500 plus nine semesters of those $325 in semester fees. Every mandatory charge is billed by semester or as a plan estimate rather than by credit, and the itemized course and residency fees appear only in Section III of the Program Handbook, which is not posted with the sheet, so ask the school for its fee list.

Southern Arkansas University: Credits are semester credits. Not listed in the CACREP directory when checked. Coursework is online; the program includes a 100-hour practicum and two 300-hour internships. Two charges are known: a $90-per-hour master’s program fee, and once, the $160 graduate graduation fee plus the $25 graduate application fee. The $88-per-hour mandatory fee package (academic excellence, activity, activity enrichment, athletic, computer technology, facility, library, public safety, recreation and student health fees, $1,320 at 15 hours) and the $4-per-hour off-campus fee are published without saying whether an online-only graduate student pays them, so they are not included here. Online courses also carry a $45 fee per course, and a $30 Graduate School Counseling Fee is published without a billing unit, so ask the school for its fee list and how many course fees apply to your plan.

Western New Mexico University: Credits are semester credits. CACREP-accredited (cycle ends April 30, 2033). Taught online with live Zoom sessions; the department page does not describe a campus requirement. The Cashier’s Office publishes combined tuition-and-fee totals for Fall 2026 and Spring 2027, and the online page states that those totals already include mandatory fees; resident graduate study prints at $343.96 per credit. Online graduate courses add a $40-per-credit online course fee on top of the totals. The $26.66-per-credit course-materials fee covers required textbooks and can be declined each semester, so it is not treated as mandatory. Non-resident totals are not proportional to credits — $1,312.74 for three, $2,625.48 for six and $5,481.45 for nine — so no non-resident per-credit rate is published and you should ask the school what a non-resident student pays for your planned load. Lab and program fees are billed per course outside the combined table, a $25-per-credit video conferencing lab fee is published without saying which courses count, and a graduation fee exists but its amount is not published.