Occupation / job
School Psychologists
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
$95,990 is $3,830 a month above the $50,020 the typical American job pays. Differences of that size in School Psychologists are held in place by a barrier — a licence, a residency, a clearance — and the barrier is the real subject of this page.
Employment stands at 63,940. School Psychologists is common enough to be recruited for continuously and specific enough that the experience travels — the combination that makes changing employer a working pay rise.
Social science suits people who can study human behaviour without needing the answer to be flattering, and who can defend a method to people who dislike the conclusion.
We carry no verified training length for School Psychologists — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
$77,470 to $120,310 — 1.6x, or $3,570 a month between the quarters. An unremarkable spread, which means the useful planning number for School Psychologists is the bottom of it rather than the middle.
Even at the 25th percentile School Psychologists pays $77,470, $27,450 clear of the $50,020 national midpoint. Almost the entire distribution sits above the typical American wage, which is rare and worth weighing against the entry cost.
Avoid it if you would find it hard to publish a finding that a funder, a discipline or the public did not want.
No failure rate is shown, and the absence is deliberate: the 63,940 figure counts people already working as School Psychologists, not everyone who trained and never got hired. Without a licensing register to divide by, a rate here would be an invented denominator.
What the spread tells you
At 1.6x between $77,470 and $120,310 this is a normally shaped occupation. $95,990 is what the middle of School Psychologists earns after the years it takes to get there, which is not the same as what it offers you now.
Put in money rather than ratios: $77,470 at the 25th percentile, $95,990 at the midpoint, $120,310 at the 75th. $42,840 separates the quarter of School Psychologists at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Between $77,470 and $120,310 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $95,990. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $24,320; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $42,840.
From $95,990 it is $18,520 down to the bottom quarter and $24,320 up to the top. The upper half of the range is the longer one, which is the ordinary shape for work where experience compounds.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $46.14 at the midpoint for School Psychologists, $37.24 at the 25th percentile and $57.84 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
What these figures are, and what they are not
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of School Psychologists for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $95,990 describes them.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for School Psychologists, the hourly figure is $95,990 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else