California State University, East Bay

What this program actually is

OrientationSystemic-relational and strength-based, framed throughout in social-justice terms

East Bay does not run a standalone MFT degree. It runs one M.S. in Counseling Psychology with three concentrations - Marriage and Family Therapy, School Counseling, and School Psychology - that share a common 31-33 unit core. You take Law and Ethics, Counseling Theories, Multicultural Counseling, Psychopathology, Child and Youth Psychotherapy, Family Therapy, Psychopharmacology, Group Counseling and Research Methods alongside future school counselors and school psychologists, then peel off into a 17-unit MFT concentration. The department frames the whole thing in explicitly political language - the program is "designed to promote social justice and democracy by preparing knowledgeable and competent professional Marriage and Family Therapists" - and the clinical vocabulary throughout the course catalog is "systemic-relational" rather than eclectic or CBT-forward.

The concrete differentiator is the Community Counseling Clinic, an in-house training clinic in Room 260 of the Art & Education Building on the Hayward campus. It provides "no-cost, high-quality counseling services" to the surrounding community, staffed entirely by MFT trainees under licensed supervisors and department faculty, with play therapy rooms stocked with paints, toys, doll houses and board games for child clients, and a stated "systems, family, and strength-based approach." It sees children, adolescents and adults, and couples and families when appropriately trained counselors are available. EPSY 696 Advanced Practicum is taught inside it. A free community clinic run by the department you are enrolled in is a genuinely different starting point from being handed a list of agencies and told to go interview.

The unit structure needs reading carefully, because it is where the catalog is least clear. The program description states that "The Master of Science in Counseling Psychology degree requires 60 units." But the itemized requirement lists for the MFT concentration in the current 2026-27 catalog sum to 48 units - 31 units of core (nine 3-unit courses plus a 4-unit capstone) plus 17 units of concentration. The remaining 12 units are a block the catalog labels "Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (Optional)": EPSY 644 Pre-Practicum Microcounseling Skills II (2), four additional units of EPSY 695 Practicum, and EPSY 696 Advanced Practicum taken twice for 6 units. Notably, the required practicum for the MFT concentration by itself is one single unit of EPSY 695; the substantial supervised clinical sequence sits in that optional block. An earlier CSUEB catalog laid this out differently, with a 38-unit core that folded in EPSY 631 Intimate Partner Violence, EPSY 632 Child Abuse Assessment and Reporting, EPSY 633 Substance Abuse, EPSY 635 Pre-Practicum Microcounseling Skills, EPSY 639 Community Mental Health Counseling and EPSY 652 Human Sexuality and Gender - all of which are California BBS content requirements and all of which still exist in the department's course inventory, but none of which appear in the current catalog's MFT requirement lists. Ask the program coordinator directly what the actual required unit total is for the class you would enter.

The program’s own page →

See it and hear it

The courses that define it

Every California program teaches law and ethics, assessment and a survey of theories. These are the courses that are not on every list — the ones that tell you what this particular faculty believes therapy is. The quoted text is the catalog’s own; the note underneath each one is mine.

The whole degree, term by term

What you would actually take, in the order you would take it. Sequences change; check the current catalog before you count on any single term.

CSUEB publishes requirement groups, not a term-by-term sequence, so the groups below are the catalog's own sections rather than semesters. The program is full-time, cohort-based, completed in about 2 years / 5 semesters, fall admission only, Hayward campus only, with classes "during the day, evening, and on some weekends" in fall and spring terms. The program description says the degree "requires 60 units"; the itemized MFT lists total 48 without the optional 12-unit LPCC block. course sequence ↗

60 units per the catalog's program description; the itemized MFT concentration requirements total 48 units (31 core + 17 concentration) plus an optional 12-unit LPCC blockunits in total

How practicum actually works

Californian clinical training runs in two legally distinct stages, and the difference decides what a program can and cannot do for you.

A trainee is a student. You see clients while still enrolled, at a site your program approves, supervised by someone the site provides. This is practicum, and it is the stage a program controls. An associate — registered with the Board after you graduate — is no longer a student, is usually paid, and is working toward the 3,000 hours the license requires. The Board renamed this stage from “intern” to “associate” in 2018, so any page still saying “MFT intern” is quoting something out of date.

Hours you bank as a trainee count toward the 3,000, up to a limit, which is why the size and quality of a program’s placement matters long after graduation: a student who leaves with 1,000 hours starts the associate years a third of the way through them, and one who leaves with the 225-hour minimum starts at the beginning.

Practicum is also where a degree most often stops being on schedule. Coursework runs on a calendar the school controls; placement does not. The questions that matter are therefore all about who owns the problem of finding you a site — and the answer differs enormously between programs on this list.

What happens after the degree →

The school runs its own training clinic.  Community Counseling Center (CSUEB campus) Owning a clinic and holding a seat in it are different things, so this sits beside the model above rather than replacing it.

The department runs its own free clinic. The Community Counseling Clinic exists "to perform two purposes: provide a professional clinical training laboratory for Master's level students at California State University, East Bay and to provide counseling services that contribute to the mental health and welfare of individuals in the community." It is open to self-referred clients and to referrals from schools, churches and social service agencies, sees children, adolescents and adults (and couples and families when trainees with appropriate training are available), operates in person and over Zoom, and is open only when trainees are in session during fall, spring and summer terms. EPSY 696 Advanced Practicum is taught in the CCC using recorded sessions. Beyond the clinic, the program states that "Marriage and Family Therapist trainees begin working in their placement sites during their second year of training. Fieldwork Placement sites are available throughout the Bay area," supervised by department faculty and licensed professionals in the field. The program does not publish a required clinical-hour count, who arranges the community placements, or the split between clinic and external sites. source ↗

Will this degree travel

What the Board requires of any qualifying degree →

What it is, on paper

Additional units may be needed for LPCC

The program’s own page →

What it costs

This program does not publish a tuition figure anywhere I could find it. 43 of the 78 on the Board’s list are the same. That is a fair thing to ask admissions directly, and the speed and specificity of the answer tells you something on its own.

What a month costs to live on while you study →

Getting in

Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is NOT required. source →

admissions page ↗

How its graduates did on the Board’s exam

Counting every attempt rather than only first attempts, the figure is 74% across 256 sittings here, against 66% statewide. First attempts are the fairer comparison — counting resits measures how many tries people needed rather than how many passed, and it penalises a school whose graduates keep going.

On the separate California Law and Ethics exam, 80% of this school’s 259 first-time candidates passed, against 80% statewide.

Recorded by the Board as California State University, Hayward. Its list is kept by institution and its names lag: a school that has since renamed appears under the name it had when the candidates sat.

July 2018 - December 2024, pooled (13 semiannual BBS reports) · the Board’s published exam results by school →

What people say about it

Quoted where the wording carries the meaning, linked in every case, opening in a new window. The tags are my reading of each source, not a measurement, and the unflattering ones are here too.

What to ask before you apply

None of these are answered on a program page, and all five change what the degree is actually worth to you.

What I could not establish

Everything above is sourced. These are the things I looked for and could not establish - take them to admissions, and note how quickly and precisely they answer.

• Unit total is genuinely ambiguous in CSUEB's own catalog. The program description says the M.S. "requires 60 units," the degree page header says "Degree Requirements (52-71 units)," and the MFT concentration's itemized lists total 48 units before the optional 12-unit LPCC block. An earlier CSUEB catalog described a 38-unit core (which included EPSY 631, 632, 633, 635, 639 and 652) plus an 18-unit concentration plus a 4-unit capstone, summing cleanly to 60. The current 2026-27 catalog is identical to 2025-26 on this point, so it is not a one-year typo. This should be confirmed with Program Coordinator Dr. Nancy Deatrick before anyone relies on a number.
• Cohort size and applicant/admit numbers are not published anywhere - not on the program page, not in the catalog, not in a public handbook. The program is not COAMFTE-accredited, so there is no required public student-achievement data table (as CSUN has).
• No term-by-term course sequence is published, despite the program being an explicit lockstep cohort. The department says cohorts follow "a defined cohort sequence" but does not publish it.
• No required clinical-hour count for fieldwork is published, and no statement of who finds the community placements (student, program, or shared). The catalog requires only one unit of EPSY 695 Practicum for the MFT concentration itself.
• The student handbook is not posted publicly; the program directs prospective students to email Dr. Nancy Deatrick for it.
• COAMFTE or CACREP accreditation: neither is claimed. The program states only that it is designed to meet California BBS educational requirements (B&P Code sections 4980.37, 4980.40 and 4980.41). This matters for out-of-state portability and for VA/Tricare panel eligibility.
• Almost no student voices exist online. One Niche review from a student in the School Counseling/MFT dual program was the only credible first-person account found; Reddit, Student Doctor Network and GradCafe searches produced nothing specific.
• Program cost: not published by the department. CSU 2025-26 systemwide graduate tuition is $2,340 per semester at 0-6.0 units and $4,032 at 6.1 or more, plus CSUEB campus fees, but no program-total figure is published.