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Athens, Georgia has 4 accredited schools offering substance abuse counseling programs, with tuition ranging from $2,636 to $31,688 per year for indexed programs. Athens has a population of about 137,582. In the Athens-Clarke County, GA metro area, the top-earning substance abuse counseling-related role is Social and Community Service Manager at a median $68,260 annually (BLS OEWS, May 2025).
The accredited institutions listed below are the closest in our directory that offer substance abuse counseling programs near Athens, ranked by BOC Score and straight-line distance from Athens 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 Athens. Advertising never affects these rankings. Read the full methodology.
Source:IPEDSCollege Scorecard
Source: IPEDS / College Scorecard (2023 cohort). Browse all Georgia schools on the Georgia substance abuse counseling page.
Athens is part of the Athens-Clarke County, GA metro area (BLS area code 12020). Where MSA-level wages are published, the table below shows MSA medians; otherwise it falls back to Georgia statewide.
| Occupation | Median Wage | Source | COL-Adjusted (US=100) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Substance Abuse, Behavioral Disorder, and Mental Health Counselor | $46,900 | Athens-Clarke County, GA | $50,268 |
| Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Worker | $52,030 | GA statewide | $55,766 |
| Social and Community Service Manager | $68,260 | Athens-Clarke County, GA | $73,162 |
| Social and Human Service Assistant | $36,560 | Athens-Clarke County, GA | $39,185 |
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Regional Price Parity (US=100) | 93.3 (below U.S. average) | BEA RPP 2024 |
Our directory has 4 accredited schools offering substance abuse counseling programs near Athens. The closest is University of Georgia in Athens, GA (0.5 miles), and the farthest of the schools shown is Southwestern Community College (97.0 miles). 4 of the highlighted schools are flagged as offering distance education.
Based on BLS OEWS May 2025 wage data, the top-paying substance abuse counseling-related roles near Athens are: Social and Community Service Manager ($68,260), Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Worker ($52,030), Substance Abuse, Behavioral Disorder, and Mental Health Counselor ($46,900). These reflect MSA-level medians where published, with Georgia statewide fallback for occupations not reported at the metro level.
Winder, GA is 20.4 miles from Athens and has its own set of local substance abuse counseling programs – see the city’s page. For online programs, distance matters less; for hybrid or in-person formats, comparing both can help.
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 Athens:
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 Substance Abuse Counseling Schools in Georgia (2026)
