About MFT Programs
MFT Programs is a directory of accredited marriage and family therapy programs. It lists the 127 programs accredited by COAMFTE, the sole programmatic accreditor for the field, and describes each one using the outcome data accredited programs are required to publish. Nothing here is written from a brochure.
The reason to build the site that way is that this field already forces the disclosure. Every accredited program has to publish a Graduate Achievement Data table showing, cohort by cohort, how many students finished on time, how many found relevant work, and how many reached licensure. Those tables are public, scattered across 127 institutional websites, and almost nobody reads them. Collecting them into one place is most of what this site is.
What the directory covers
The directory holds every accredited program at every level COAMFTE accredits, which is three levels and not four:
| Level | Programs | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Master's | 98 | The degree that qualifies you to seek licensure and practice. |
| Doctoral | 27 | Research and advanced clinical training, usually taken after a master's. |
| Post-degree | 2 | Clinical training for people who already hold a qualifying degree. |
| Bachelor's | 0 | COAMFTE accredits no bachelor's degree in this field. |
Those programs sit in 35 states, which leaves 15 with no accredited option at all, and 29 of them can be studied at a distance, though every one still requires in-person clinical hours. The site is organized around that shape: 4 national rankings, a state ranking covering all 127, 33 state pages at master's level and 16 at doctoral level, 6 career profiles, and salary data from the federal wage survey.
How programs are scored
Scoring runs on two models, because two different questions are being asked. The national rankings answer which programs have the best published record, so they include only the 78 programs with enough disclosed outcomes to judge. 88 publish a table at all; the rest of that gap is programs whose table does not yet cover enough completed cohorts. The weights are these:
- Graduation rate, 45%. The share of each cohort that finished within the length the program advertises. It carries the most weight because it is the figure that varies most between programs, and because a degree not finished is the most expensive outcome a student can have.
- Job placement rate, 35%. The share of graduates working in a role that uses the training. Almost every program reports well here, so it separates the field less than graduation does, but a program that dips is telling you something real.
- Licensure rate, 20%. The share of graduates who reached any level of MFT licensure. It is the outcome that decides whether a graduate can practice, and roughly a quarter of programs do not publish it.
The state pages answer a different question, which is what is available where you live, and there every accredited program in the state has to appear whether or not it publishes. So those pages use a composite: 60 points for published outcomes, 25 for transparency and 15 for accreditation standing. A program publishing nothing can still reach 40 of 100 on the last two.
One thing follows from that and is worth saying plainly, because it is the easiest thing on this site to misread. The 49 programs that fall outside the national rankings are not worse programs. They are programs that have published less, and a score here is a measurement of disclosure rather than a verdict on teaching. The full model, with every weight and its justification, is on the methodology page.
Where the data comes from
Data on this site comes from three public sources and every figure is attributed to the one it came from, in a link that goes to the document rather than to a homepage:
- The COAMFTE directory, for accreditation status, level, location and the date accreditation began.
- Each program's own Graduate Achievement Data table, for graduation, job placement and licensure rates by cohort. Where a program has not published one, the pages say so rather than leaving a gap.
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics and O*NET, for wages, employment levels and what the work involves.
We republish these figures and we do not audit them. A program's disclosure is its own claim, and the link next to every number is there so you can check it against the source in one click.
How this site pays for itself
This site may earn money from programs featured on it, and where it does the placement is labeled. This site may receive compensation when readers request information from or enroll in programs featured here. Sponsored placements are labeled. Accreditation status, wage data, and program structure data are sourced directly from official records and are reported the same way regardless of partnership status.
No school buys a rank. Scores are produced by the published formula from public data, so a program's number would be identical whether or not any commercial relationship existed, and no institution is shown its entry before it goes live.
Who writes this site
MFT Programs is edited by Zoe MacDougall, Founder & Editor, who holds a BS in Psychology from the University of Washington. That is a research and editorial background rather than a clinical one. Nobody here is a licensed marriage and family therapist, nothing on the site is clinical or legal advice, and the licensure requirements that matter to you are set by your state board rather than by us.
The site was created and is published by Savo Group, a digital marketing agency specializing in Organic SEO & Web Design.
What the site does claim is that the numbers are the programs' own, that the model producing the scores is written down in full, and that both are checkable.
Corrections and contact
Corrections are welcome, and we would much rather hear about an error than not. If a figure here is wrong, or a program's accreditation or published record has changed, write to help@hakia.com with a source and we will check it. Where a correction changes a published figure we make it and move the page's last updated date, which is derived from the files behind the page rather than typed in by hand.