Accredited doctoral MFT training exists at exactly one institution in Illinois, Adler University (PhD). The useful question is not which of these is best but whether this one earns the years it will take, and this page is built to answer that.
Every accredited doctoral MFT program in Illinois, ranked
All 1 of Illinois’s accredited doctoral MFT programs carry a score out of 100. One publishes nothing, so it forfeits the 60 points for results and cannot pass 40. That is a statement about disclosure, not about teaching.
- #1
Adler University (PhD)
Chicago, IL
19.5
program score
Campus-basedDoctoralWhere it leads in Illinois
Illinois pays a median of $60,970 for this license, and carries about as much of the work per head as the middle of the country does. Ten per cent earn under $51,420 and ten per cent over $104,900, a spread driven more by whether you are salaried or in practice than by years served.
What to know about it
Adler University runs this doctorate from Chicago, IL. No other doctoral program in Illinois holds COAMFTE accreditation, which makes the choice less about comparing and more about whether this one fits. Curriculum runs to 59 credits. Concentrations run to substance use and addiction, sex and intimacy and trauma. Coursework named on its own page covers sex therapy, medical family therapy and play therapy. The disclosure is not optional under COAMFTE accreditation, so read the gap as something to raise with the program, not as something unremarkable. Three completed cohorts is a thin record, so ask what the years still in progress look like.
Why it sits here 19.5 of 100. The program forfeits the 60 points attached to published results by not publishing any, and keeps what transparency and standing earn it.
Adler University program page The address COAMFTE lists for its outcome data
Score breakdown
- Outcomes 0/60no completed-cohort outcomes published
- Transparency 7.5/25publishes a document with no cohort table in it
- Standing 12/15accredited without conditions, current term runs to 2028-05
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How is this ranking of Illinois MFT programs ordered?
This ranking of Illinois MFT programs is ordered on disclosure rather than on results, because nothing in the state has a published record at this level yet. The scores below are capped at 40 out of 100. Every program is marked out of 100 on the same three things: what its graduates achieved (60 points), whether it published that at the address the accreditor lists (25), and the standing of its accreditation (15).
A program that publishes nothing does not have the outcomes weight handed back to it. If it did, disclosure would become a liability: publish a mediocre record and score below the program that published nothing at all.
A low score here is a statement about disclosure, not a measurement of teaching. A program that has published no graduation rate is given none, no estimate and nothing borrowed from a peer, and its card says so in those words. Publishing the data is a condition of accreditation, so what is being marked down is a requirement the program agreed to and has not met.
The methodology covers how each factor is weighted and why the field is not scored on anything else.
Does a doctorate change what you earn in Illinois?
A doctorate does not change what you earn in Illinois so far as the published figures are concerned, because they cover the license and not the degree. Master's and doctoral holders sit inside the same number, so any claim about what a doctorate earns here is an inference rather than a measurement.
Think of it as qualifying for a different job rather than being paid more for this one. That is a real reason to do it and a poor reason to expect a return on the fees.
The state's own figures, the median, the percentile range and the employment count, are set out alongside the master's programs in Illinois, and the salary page compares every state and setting.
How do you get licensed as an MFT in Illinois?
Getting licensed as an MFT in Illinois starts with a qualifying doctorate, and the state offers exactly one accredited doctoral program to get it from, which is why the out-of-state and distance options on this page matter more here than they would in California. Beyond the degree, Illinois's specific requirements for supervised hours and coursework belong to its state licensing board, and repeating them here would mean publishing numbers that go out of date quietly and are acted on expensively.
A state board treats an accredited MFT degree as settled, which is the practical argument for insisting on one and the reason this page lists only accredited doctoral programs. Worth weighing alongside it: Illinois carries fewer of these jobs per head than the country as a whole, at 0.33 times the national rate, so ask the programs above where their graduates actually end up.
The Illinois state board is worth contacting before you apply, not after. Its answers on supervised hours and on out-of-state experience are the ones that bind, and they occasionally differ from what accredited programs tell prospective students.
The career page walks the same route in order, and the methodology sets out how the programs above were scored.
MFT programs in Illinois by city
One city in Illinois has a page of its own, covering the programs based there and what the license pays in that metropolitan area. Programs in the rest of the state are on this page and nowhere else.
Where else can you study if Illinois does not have what you want?
Where else you can study matters more in Illinois than in most states: a one-program offering means most people weighing this decision are weighing somewhere else too, which is the shape of a small field rather than a failure of the state.
The nearest alternatives with accredited doctoral MFT programs are Kansas (one), Michigan (one), Minnesota (one). 34 states have no accredited programs at this level at all, which is the gap the accredited distance programs exist to fill.
The distance doctoral ranking lists the programs open to you wherever in Illinois you live.
All 18 scored programs at this level are on the national ranking.
Cities near Illinois with their own page
These sit elsewhere in the midwest, and each has a page covering the programs based there and what the job pays in that metropolitan area rather than statewide.
Common questions about MFT programs in Illinois
How many accredited doctoral MFT programs are in Illinois?
Can you get licensed as an MFT in Illinois with an online degree?
Is a doctoral MFT program in Illinois worth the extra years?
What if the one accredited doctoral program in Illinois is not right for you?
Where do these figures come from?
These figures come from three independent sources, kept separate on purpose, because that is what makes any one of them checkable against the original.
- COAMFTE Directory of Accredited Programs Accredited programs in Illinois, their level, city and status. Read 2026-08-21.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics May 2025 release, SOC 21-1013, all Illinois postholders.
- Ranking methodology The three factors, their weights, and the eligibility floor.