MSU Aims To Help Rural Montanans Access School Counseling Program

Montana State University will soon be offering a version of its graduate-level school counseling program online, while a grant from the U.S. Department of Education will help individuals in rural parts of Montana access that program.

The efforts are part of the MSU Department of Counseling’s ongoing work to train professionals to serve people in communities across Montana, said Rebecca Koltz, professor and head of the counseling department.

“There is a real need for what we call ‘place-committed’ individuals who would like to do good work in those rural areas but can’t leave for a two-year training,” Koltz said. “We heard from people who said they would love to go back to school, but they can’t leave their jobs. That led us to start thinking about this online component a few years ago, and we ended up creating this online training to meet the needs of those individuals.”

MSU’s online master’s program was approved by the Montana Board of Regents in May, and the first group of students will begin in summer 2026. Importantly, Koltz said, the online program will not replace MSU’s in-person master’s program in school counseling, which will continue unchanged. She noted that both versions of the 60-credit program, housed in the College of Education, Health and Human Development, are accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs, or CACREP.

Students enrolled in the online program will take three to four classes per summer. The classes will be delivered in an asynchronous format, meaning that students can choose when to complete the work within a certain timeframe. Several other classes will be offered asynchronously throughout the academic year, and students will also complete their required practicums and internships during the academic year, when public schools are in session.

In addition, students must complete two short-term residencies on the MSU campus in Bozeman – likely long weekends, Koltz said. There will also be opportunities to participate in other professional development and community-building events throughout the program, such as a learning institute in April prior to the Montana School Counseling Association conference for students participating in a grant-funded program.

Koltz said MSU’s online school counseling program will take three years to complete, while the in-person version takes two years.

A $3 million, five-year Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration grant from the U.S. Department of Education will provide funds to help cover the tuition costs of up to eight students from rural Montana communities who are enrolled in MSU’s online program, Koltz said, as well as a similar online program at the University of Montana. MSU’s portion of the grant, known as “Rural School Mental Health Prepare in Place,” or RSMHP2, is $1.2 million. Students from communities that are not considered rural but who are interested in MSU’s online program are still eligible to apply but will not be eligible for tuition support.

The new online school counseling program builds off another grant-funded program, Rural Mental Health Preparation/Practice Pathway, that was a collaboration between MSU, UM and the Montana Office of Public Instruction. That program, funded in 2023 by a five-year, $2.3 million U.S. Department of Education grant, was also designed to prepare counselors to provide services for Montana’s rural schools and communities.

Many counseling positions remain unfilled in Montana each year, and the need for educational and training opportunities is great, Koltz said.

“A lot of those unfilled positions are in small, rural schools,” Koltz said. “That’s where we started to think about how what we really need is someone who is perhaps already living in that area who is already established who would be interested in getting training to do the school counseling program.

The preferred application deadline for MSU’s school counseling program is Feb. 1, 2026. To learn more, visit https://www.montana.edu/ counselingdepartment/.