BestOnlineCollege.org is an advertising-supported website. Many of the school and program listings that appear on this site are from partners who compensate us, and this compensation may affect how, where, and in what order listings appear (such as featured placements). This compensation does not influence our editorial content, evaluations, or rankings, which are determined independently using publicly available data. We do not review or feature every school or program available in the marketplace. Our goal is to provide accurate, unbiased information so you can make informed decisions. Read our full Advertiser Disclosure.
San Francisco, California has 3 accredited schools offering mental health counseling programs, with tuition ranging from $7,950 to $20,550 per year for indexed programs. San Francisco has a population of about 836,321. Median household income is $141,446 (Census ACS 2023, 5-year). About 60.1% of adults 25+ hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. In the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA metro area, the top-earning mental health counseling-related role is Clinical and Counseling Psychologist at a median $166,400 annually (BLS OEWS, May 2025).
The accredited institutions listed below are the closest in our directory that offer mental health counseling programs near San Francisco, ranked by BOC Score and straight-line distance from San Francisco city center. The list is rebuilt from federal IPEDS data on every site update.
Every school list on this site is ordered by the BOC Score, computed from the most recent school-level data published by the U.S. Department of Education (College Scorecard and IPEDS). To qualify, a school must be currently operating and accredited by an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. Each eligible school is then scored on five measures, percentile-ranked against schools at the same credential level:
Schools without enough outcome data appear after ranked schools, without a score. On this page, schools are ordered by distance from San Francisco. Advertising never affects these rankings. Read the full methodology.
Source:IPEDSCollege Scorecard
Source: IPEDS / College Scorecard (2023 cohort). Browse all California schools on the California mental health counseling page.
San Francisco is part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA metro area (BLS area code 41860). Where MSA-level wages are published, the table below shows MSA medians; otherwise it falls back to California statewide.
| Occupation | Median Wage | Source | COL-Adjusted (US=100) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Substance Abuse, Behavioral Disorder, and Mental Health Counselor | $68,400 | San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | $59,170 |
| Marriage and Family Therapist | $77,210 | San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | $66,791 |
| Clinical and Counseling Psychologist | $166,400 | San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | $143,945 |
| Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Worker | $87,550 | San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | $75,735 |
Source: BLS, May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes wage data at the metro (MSA) and state level – not by individual city.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Population | 836,321 | Census ACS 2023 5-yr (B01003) |
| Median household income | $141,446 | Census ACS 2023 5-yr (B19013) |
| Adults 25+ with bachelor’s+ | 60.1% | Census ACS 2023 5-yr (B15003) |
| Regional Price Parity (US=100) | 115.6 (above U.S. average) | BEA RPP 2024 |
Our directory has 3 accredited schools offering mental health counseling programs near San Francisco. The closest is San Francisco State University in San Francisco, CA (3.0 miles), and the farthest of the schools shown is Palo Alto University (29.4 miles). 3 of the highlighted schools are flagged as offering distance education.
Based on BLS OEWS May 2025 wage data, the top-paying mental health counseling-related roles near San Francisco are: Clinical and Counseling Psychologist ($166,400), Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Worker ($87,550), Marriage and Family Therapist ($77,210). These reflect MSA-level medians where published, with California statewide fallback for occupations not reported at the metro level.
Daly City, CA is 5.0 miles from San Francisco and has its own set of local mental health counseling programs – see the city’s page. For online programs, distance matters less; for hybrid or in-person formats, comparing both can help.
San Francisco’s median household income of $141,446 (Census ACS 2023) is one input. Online programs let students stay in San Francisco while attending lower-cost out-of-state schools, and California public universities often offer reduced in-state online tuition.
Confirm institutional accreditation via the U.S. Department of Education database (U.S. Dept. of Education database), and check for any program-specific accreditation listed by the school.
Compare every accredited online degree program with city-level data for San Francisco:
Data verified: August 11, 2026. Salary, employment, and tuition figures on this page are sourced from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (OEWS May 2025; Employment Projections 2024–2034) and the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard (2023 cohort). The source agency and data year are cited inline with every statistic.
Back to Best Mental Health Counseling Schools in California (2026)
