Online MFT Programs - Are They Worth It?

Many prospective applicants I speak with have a lot of skepticism about online MFT programs. Underneath this anxiety I sense suspicion—which is well-founded. I am not saying online programs are scams. I am saying that if you are experiencing this anxiety, you’ve got some good reasons to feel that way, and I’ll explain why now.

ONLINE PROGRAMS FEEL SCAMMY BECAUSE THEY’RE TRYING SO HARD

If online MFT programs feel scammy to you, you’re probably reacting to the proactive marketing that many online schools engage in. Whether you’re aware of it or not, you’re recognizing marketing techniques that you’ve experienced in other areas—shopping for car insurance, perhaps, or clicking on an Instagram ad. You enter your email address ONE TIME and next thing you know, you’re getting a barrage of calls, daily emails, ads following you all over the internet…it’s a lot.

The problem is, these marketing techniques work. If you’re juggling a full-time job you loathe while you’re applying to grad school, at some point the “admissions counselor” blowing up your phone might morph from a pest into actually a pretty convenient way to just get applying to school off your to-do list. If you’ve spent all your free time trying to remember how to do pre-calculus so you can help your child with their homework, you don’t have a ton of time left to research the pros and cons of grad schools—so it can be a relief when a school sends you a handy list of why they’re “the best,” along with a tuition discount or “scholarship.”

Common marketing techniques feel weird coming from an academic institution because we’re acculturated to experience colleges and universities as “not business,” when in reality, many very much are. For-profit schools are, in fact, exactly businesses, but even non-profit universities must manage their funding well to keep their doors open. Does this fact affect the quality of the education? I’m not sure there’s a direct line.

WHY ARE GRAD PROGRAMS BIG BUSINESS?

I highly encourage you to read this article from the Washington Post before you apply to grad school. It clarifies things that may otherwise just be giving you a vague uneasy feeling. Here’s the part I found really enlightening:

Specifically, the Grad Plus loan program, created by Congress in 2005, essentially made it possible for prospective graduate students to borrow whatever schools charge for tuition, fees, room and board, and other expenses. By contrast, undergraduates face borrowing caps of up to $12,500 per year and $57,500 total, depending on individual circumstances. (Grad Plus borrowing totals $82.8 billion, distributed among 1.5 million individuals.) Fees and interest for Grad Plus are higher than for undergrad loans; the government covers any unpaid balance after 20 years.

It didn’t take long for universities to figure out that this system imposes little or no pricing discipline on them — and to shape their graduate programs accordingly, especially master’s degrees, which enrolled 49 percent of all Grad Plus borrowers in 2017, according to the Government Accountability Office. (That figure includes business school, often the prelude to high-paying work.)

What that really means is that, in 2005, suddenly anyone who wanted a master’s degree could access all the funds they needed in the form of loans from the government. It makes sense that any university administration trying to balance their budget might be interested in master’s programs that don’t cost a lot to administer, but for which they can charge students a pretty good amount.

If you’re like me, it’s starting to make sense why online programs cost as much as in-person programs.

Now, in some fields, a master’s degree can still be a tough sell—you don’t actually need a master’s degree in film to work in the entertainment industry, so schools need to convince applicants that it’s worth the investment anyway. When it comes to becoming a psychotherapist, however, you actually must have a master’s degree to pursue the career. Anyone interested in entering the field of psychotherapy has to go through a master’s program first, otherwise you can’t get licensed.

And the government is willing to loan students as much money as the school says they need to complete the program.

So…I didn’t get an MBA, but even I can see that offering a master’s degree that people HAVE to get probably makes good business sense. It’s why there are literally hundreds of different companies offering traffic school so you can get a traffic ticket off your record. And you could offer a reasonably-priced program, but if you happen to be a big university trading on big-time name-brand recognition…why would you? And if you’re a for-profit school with less prestige, wouldn’t you price your online MFT program right around the average cost for MFT programs in your state just because you can?

This isn’t a nefarious practice—it’s business. But if the thought of an online MFT program gives you some anxiety, this might be part of why.

ONLINE EDUCATION FOR AN IRL CAREER

Another thing that might be giving you pause when it comes to online MFT programs is something that has, for a long time, been a common opinion in the field of psychotherapy—how can you possibly learn how to do intimate, in-person work like therapy through the internet?

This field is chock full of feelings masquerading as facts. Biases that many hold as immutable or obvious truths, when truly examined, are often revealed to just be opinions. So for a very long time, therapists themselves were the ones saying you couldn’t do “real therapy” online, let alone get trained as a therapist via the internet. For example, my field site during my MFT program was one of the very few training clinics that was onboarding a telehealth (online therapy) system way before Covid. Before “pandemic” became a buzzword, the clinic was encouraging us trainees to give the new system a try, and when they didn’t get an enthusiastic response, they decided to require that trainees see at least some clients online. The response from my colleagues varied, but I remember some incensed outbursts in the counselors’ lounge about how “online therapy is just lacking what therapy is really all about!!” and “I will never do online therapy when I’m licensed.”

THIS WAS IN 2019.

The research, however, does not support these conclusions. Online therapy is effective and often preferred by clients. As you probably know, in 2020, there was an absolute explosion in telehealth—if there was any doubt about whether the online environment was counterproductive to helpful therapy, Covid blew that out of the water.

Additionally, every single MFT program had to transition to an online program for over a year, giving the lie to any educator who insisted training MFTs couldn’t possibly happen online. If it’s not possible…why didn’t the programs just pause for a year? Instead, everyone rapidly agreed it was totally possible to train psychotherapists online. It was under those conditions that I, in fact, graduated! The cohort behind me will graduate from their MFT program having never seen a single client in person…and suddenly no one seems to think that’s a problem.

So…don’t listen to anyone who tells you online therapy isn’t therapy, and an online education isn’t a real education. Neither is true. What IS true is that in-person programs do have some advantages over online programs that, I believe, any good online program is prepared to address.

DISADVANTAGES OF ONLINE PROGRAMS AND WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT

The first big disadvantage to online programs is the loss of the networking opportunities that come with physically going to campus, engaging with students and professors during class, passing colleagues and supervisors in the hall of your training site, and connecting with people in your physical area who may later help you get a job. A good, supportive online program won’t try to avoid or ignore this fact—instead, they should offer opportunities to help facilitate connections. This field is very much a word-of-mouth field, in that the best jobs never end up getting posted to Monster or Indeed. For example, my training site was a private practice model, where volunteer supervisors (who were also clinicians in private practice locally) supervised trainees while they were in graduate school. Many students who formed good relationships with these supervisors were hired into that supervisor’s private practice upon graduation. Additionally, classmates I had at CSUN who formed good relationships with professors and wanted to go into community mental health were given good recommendations to local agencies those professors used to run.

If you decide to attend an online program that doesn’t offer much in the way of support in fostering a professional network, I highly encourage you to do it yourself. Join the professional organizations and attend local chapter meetings. Seek out training opportunities like workshops or conferences and force yourself to connect with other attendees. If you’re an introvert, join the therapist Facebook groups and make connections online that you can hopefully eventually take off-line. But please—don’t neglect this aspect of this career!

The other big disadvantage I see to online programs is that there’s more opportunity to do the bare minimum. If you’re simply watching a lecture online, your professor and classmates can’t really tell if you’re engaged. Without class discussion, there are fewer opportunities for you to ask questions that pop into your head, and maybe you’ll just decide it’s not worth asking anyone anyway. I AM NOT CALLING YOU LAZY! It’s just that when we’re busy, and graduate school gets overwhelming, there’s an unavoidable force that drags us down to doing just what we need to do to get by. I would ask any online program how they support students in avoiding this tendency. What opportunities are there for faculty members to really engage in training efforts with students? Is the entire program just passive lectures? How will the faculty know if you’re falling behind, or not working up to your potential?

If they can’t answer those questions, the onus will be on you to resist settling for mediocrity. For super-ambitious self-starters, this might be less of a problem, but for most of us, we need a coach in our corner, someone who’s going to hold us accountable and really cares about our success. You’ll need to seek these mentors out on your own. It can be done, but it is one more thing you’ll need to do because the program isn’t providing it.

TL;DR

Bottom line, online MFT programs can be great programs—there’s nothing stopping them. But there is also precious little incentive for ANY program to be a truly great program, because: 1) you have to get a master’s degree from somewhere to be a therapist, and 2) the government can loan you all the money the school says you need to make it happen. If you find yourself in a less-than-great program, it’s ok—you will still get your degree and you’ll still be able to sit for the licensing exam!

But it will be up to you to become a great therapist.