Best School Psychology Programs in Texas Rankings for 2026

This is the part that makes Texas unusual, so read it carefully. To work as a school psychologist anywhere in Texas, including in a public school, you need a state license called the Licensed Specialist in School Psychology (LSSP). It is issued by the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists, which now sits under the Texas Behavioral Health Executive Council. That is a psychology licensing board, not the Texas Education Agency. Most states credential school psychologists through their education department. Texas treats it as a professional psychology license, and you cannot practice without it.

The requirements are clear. Per NASP and the licensing board, you need a graduate degree of at least 60 semester hours in school psychology, no more than 12 of which can be internship hours. You complete a 1,200-hour internship, at least 600 hours of it in a public school. Then you pass a national exam, the Praxis School Psychologist exam (#5403), and the open-book Texas Jurisprudence Examination on state rules, and you clear a fingerprint-based background check. There is a shortcut: if you already hold the Nationally Certified School Psychologist (NCSP) credential, or you graduated from a NASP-approved or APA-accredited program, you are considered to have met the training and internship requirements.

One more thing worth knowing. The LSSP authorizes you to deliver school psychological services in public and private schools. It does not license you for general private practice outside the school setting. If you want to practice psychology more broadly, that is a separate, fuller license, the Licensed Psychologist, which requires a doctorate. Most school psychologists hold the LSSP and stay in schools.

Texas pays school psychologists below the national median, and there is no point pretending otherwise. The BLS May 2025 data puts the Texas median at $83,690, against a national median of $95,990. That is about 13% under the national number. The range runs from roughly $67,650 at the 10th percentile to $116,180 at the 90th percentile. As with teachers, the pay follows district salary schedules, and Texas districts sit on the lower end nationally. Among Texas metros, McAllen-Edinburg-Mission posts one of the higher medians at $90,310, which still lands under the national figure.

Here is the honest counterweight. Texas has no state income tax, so the take-home value of $83,690 is higher than the same gross salary in California or New York, where the state takes a meaningful bite. Cost of living in much of Texas, outside the priciest pockets of Austin, is lower than in the coastal states that top the salary charts, so the real spending power of a Texas school psychologist salary is better than the raw number suggests. And these figures reflect a roughly 10-month, school-year calendar, which leaves summers open for contract assessment work or extended-school-year pay that can lift annual earnings.

Almost every NASP-approved Texas program leads to the same LSSP license, so the real decision is about location, schedule, cost, and degree level. Here is how the programs sort out.