What this program actually is
OrientationSystemic/family-systems for the MAMFT (explicitly AAMFT-competency driven, modern and postmodern models side by side); the California M.A. Counseling Psychology is integrative and recovery-model-forward, with a distinct holistic/transpersonal strand
If you searched "JFK University MFT" and landed here, this is what happened. John F. Kennedy University was founded in 1965 in Pleasant Hill, Contra Costa County, and became affiliated with the National University System in April 2009. In May 2020 JFKU announced its closure, ceasing operations on December 31, 2020; local coverage at the time reported that the graduate psychology programs moved to National University in San Diego and the law school moved to Northcentral. National University then merged with Northcentral University in 2022. "JFK" today is not a campus and not a degree — it is a school name inside National University: the JFK School of Psychology and Social Sciences. Its Associate Dean of Operations, Timothy Ford, joined JFKU in 2017 as Director of Clinical Operations for JFKU's Community Counseling Centers, "transitioned to National University" at the closure, and became Associate Dean "for the expanded JFK School of Psychology and Social Sciences in 2022." What genuinely survived from JFKU is that East Bay clinical infrastructure: the Michael G. Harris Community Counseling Program still places trainees in Mt. Diablo Unified, Pittsburg Unified, Contra Costa Community College District, Solano Community College District and the Family Justice Center, with supervision by NU-employed licensed clinicians.
The degree that carries the JFK-adjacent California identity is the M.A. in Counseling Psychology (California) — but be careful, because there is good evidence it is National University's own long-running program rather than a transplanted JFKU one. National's current program page quotes an alumna from the Class of 2011, and Timothy Ford's own bio says he "received both his bachelor's degree and master's degree in counseling psychology at National University" before he ever joined JFKU. So the honest description is: NU absorbed JFKU's people, clinics and the JFK name, and folded them around a counseling psychology degree it already ran. That degree is 60 semester credit hours, delivered online, quoted at about 22 months, and explicitly California-only: "NU's online MFT program is designed for California only." It runs an MFT track and a combined MFT/LPCC track (three extra courses: research, testing and assessment, career counseling), and its practicum is unusual in shape — five short courses, PSY 681A through PSY 681E, each a two-month online seminar with roughly 30 to 70 face-to-face client hours attached.
The other degree, the M.A. in Marriage and Family Therapy (MAMFT), comes from the Northcentral side and is a different product for a different buyer. It is COAMFTE-accredited — National says it is "the first online MFT program accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education" — and it is nationally scoped rather than California-specific, with a 22-course California Licensure Track for people who need the state's extra content. It is asynchronous, 12-week courses, systemic to its core (AAMFT core competencies, a capstone where you must "identify how your chosen model is systemic"), and it has "no residency requirement, allowing students to complete their program without having to relocate." It is also enormous and impersonal by design: the program's own COAMFTE demographic disclosure reports 1,275 MAMFT students, 146 faculty and 40 supervisors, with new starts every Monday and no cohorts. Student reviews are strikingly consistent about the trade: flexibility and the ability to keep working full time on one side; advising churn, "outdated" materials and a hard, largely self-directed practicum search on the other.
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.
Holistic Treatment
"This course is a survey of holistic approaches to counseling psychology. Theories and practices of transpersonal, somatic, expressive arts, and holistic psychology will be examined. The course will focus on experiential examination of each theory and how it may be clinically applied with different therapeutic issues and across different client identities."catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingA required transpersonal/somatic/expressive-arts course in an otherwise conventional online California licensure curriculum — the one place the JFK-flavored 'psychology and holistic studies' lineage is still visible in a required course. If somatic or expressive work is why you're looking at this school, this is the course to ask about, because it is the only one.
Cultural & Social Justice Iss.
"An exploration of the role of culture, social justice, and systemic privilege and oppression in concepts of mental health practice. Students will examine how their own cultural background frames their understanding of themselves and others. Social and economic disadvantage, structural inequality, white fragility, and the limitations of the dominant Eurocentric psychological world view to diverse populations are explored."catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingMost catalogs describe their multicultural requirement in neutral, complianceable language. Naming white fragility and the limits of the Eurocentric worldview in the catalog text is a stated position, and tells you what the classroom conversation will actually be about.
Relational & Systemic Trauma
"This course will look at the traumatic impact of institutionalized racism, bias and marginalization as well as the isolative effects of acute trauma on the client… The course will also explore trauma of war including moral injury as well as an exploration of the effects on refugees and displaced individuals."catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingThe California program requires a two-course trauma sequence (PSY 679A on nervous-system-guided stabilisation and processing, PSY 679B on structural and war trauma). Six units of required trauma content, with moral injury and refugee displacement named explicitly, is more than most California MFT curricula carry.
Recovery-Oriented Care and Postmodern Family Therapy
"This Master's level course focuses on post-modern models and treatment trends in marriage and family therapy including the philosophy of social constructionism and the narrative, solution focused, and collaborative models, and the recovery model. Course content will enable students to conceptualize and distinguish recent epistemological issues."catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingThe MAMFT splits family therapy into a Classic/intergenerational course (MFT 5104) and this postmodern one, in the first three courses of the program. Getting social constructionism and narrative work as foundation rather than elective is the clearest sign this is a genuinely systemic degree and not a generalist counseling degree with a family label.
Gerontology and Systemic Intervention Master's
"This course deals with the biological, social, cognitive, and psychological aspects of aging… A significant focus of the course is the application of systemic treatment/theory to the older adult population and multigenerational families. Students will explore ethical dilemmas that might arise while working in gerontological settings."catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingCalifornia's BBS requires only ten hours on aging and long-term care, and most programs satisfy it with a 1- or 1.5-unit module. The MAMFT's California Licensure Track carries a full three-credit gerontology course framed systemically — a genuine outlier if older adults and multigenerational family work interest you.
MFT Practicum I
"The emphasis of this course is on building foundational clinical skills and learning the skills needed to operate effectively and ethically when providing telehealth… A majority of the work in this course will occur in the weekly 2-hour group supervision sessions with other NU students."catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingThis is the whole shape of distance clinical training in one description: your didactic supervision is a weekly two-hour Zoom group with students scattered across the country, while your actual hours and individual supervision come from a local site you found yourself. Telehealth competence is taught as a first-order skill, not an afterthought.
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.
There is no published term-by-term grid for either degree, because neither runs cohorts — students take courses one or two at a time on rolling starts (MAMFT courses run 12 weeks; National's own courses are described as one-month courses). The lists below are the required course sequences as published, grouped the way the school groups them. Two separate degrees are shown because both lead to California MFT licensure and prospective students routinely confuse them. course sequence ↗
60 semester credit hours (M.A. Counseling Psychology, California). MAMFT: "at least 45 Credit Hours", 45–60 depending on state; the 22-course California Licensure Track works out to 60 credits (17 three-credit content courses, four 2-credit clinical courses and a 1-credit capstone).units in total
- PSY 501A Foundations in Counseling I (3)
- PSY 501B Foundations in Counseling II (3)
- PSY 605 Lifespan & Sexual Development (3)
- PSY 637 Cultural & Social Justice Iss. (3)
- PSY 610 Community Mental Health (3)
- PSY 644A Therapeutic Skills & Theory A (3)
- PSY 644B Therapeutic Skills & Theory B (3)
- PSY 612A Clinical Assessment I (3)
- PSY 612B Clinical Assessment II (3)
- PSY 636 Child and Adolescent Therapy (3)
- PSY 632 Couples Therapy & Sexuality (3)
- PSY 632A Family Therapy (3)
- PSY 627 Legal & Ethical Issues (3)
- PSY 644C Therapeutic Skills & Theory C (3)
- PSY 681A Practicum A (1)
- PSY 628 Group Therapy (3)
- PSY 681B Practicum B (1)
- PSY 646 Holistic Treatment (3)
- PSY 640A Treatment of Addictions (3)
- PSY 681C Practicum C (1)
- PSY 679A Found. & Trauma-Focused Care (3)
- PSY 679B Relational & Systemic Trauma (3)
- PSY 681D Practicum D (2)
- PSY 678 Psychopharmacology (3)
- PSY 681E Practicum E (1)
- PSY 653 Research and Evaluation (3)
- PSY 624A Testing and Assessment (3)
- PSY 645A Career Counseling (3)
- MFT 5101 Foundations for Graduate Study in Marriage and Family Therapy (3)
- MFT 5104 Treatment Planning and Traditional Family Therapy (3)
- MFT 5105 Recovery-Oriented Care and Postmodern Family Therapy (3)
- MFT 6103 Cultural Diversity, Gender, and Family Development (3)
- MFT 5103 Systemic Evaluation and Case Management (3)
- MFT 6201 California Law and Professional Ethics (3)
- MFT 6102 Psychopathology, Diagnosis, and Systemic Treatment (3)
- MFT 6105 Couple and Sex Therapy (3)
- MFT 6104 Family Therapy with Children (3)
- MFT 6106 Families in Crisis (3)
- MFT 5106 Research Methods and Evidence Based Practice (3)
- MFT 6101 Human Development and Family Dynamics Across the Lifespan (3)
- MFT 6203 Human Sexuality (3)
- MFT 6111 Systemic Interventions in Addictions (3)
- MFT 6112 Fundamentals of Psychopharmacology (3)
- MFT 6113 Assessing and Treating Family Violence (3)
- MFT 6118 Gerontology and Systemic Intervention Master's (3)
- MFT 6930 MFT Practicum I
- MFT 6931 MFT Practicum II
- MFT 6932CA MFT Internship I
- MFT 6933CA MFT Internship II
- MFT 6934CA MFT Internship and Capstone
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 →
You apply, with the school’s help
There is an approved-site list and real support, and the seat is still yours to win. Most programs are here and most students manage it. Ask for last year’s numbers rather than the policy: how many students placed on the first round, and how many had to extend.
While students are ultimately responsible for securing clinical sites and supervisors, the NU clinical faculty and staff bring to bear considerable experience, comprehensive support, and tremendous resources in facilitating the identification, vetting of, and contracting with agencies and supervisors. the school’s own page →
This is the part of the degree that reviews complain about most, and the handbook is unusually blunt about why: "Students will have access to the database of sites that have previously been vetted, but each student is ultimately responsible for finding a local practicum/internship site and a qualified Local Clinical Supervisor." You must also find a local supervisor who meets your state board's requirements for supervising post-degree hours (AAMFT Approved Supervisor preferred but not required; systemic-practice, systemic-supervision and telehealth training are the minimum). Weekly structure during clinical courses is one hour of individual supervision from your local supervisor plus a two-hour online group supervision session with NU faculty; in MAMFT practicum you are doing roughly 6–8 hours of direct therapy a week. Paid or volunteer placements are both acceptable. The exception to the find-it-yourself model is the inherited JFKU infrastructure: if you are in Contra Costa or Solano county you can apply to the Michael G. Harris Community Counseling Program or the NU Community Counseling Center, which train MFT, PCC, MSW and PsyD trainees, emphasize solution-focused brief therapy, family systems and humanistic approaches, and ask for a one-year (four quarter) commitment at 20–25 hours a week including a minimum of 10 client hours. source ↗
Will this degree travel
COAMFTE accredited
This is the accreditation that decides whether the degree travels. 12 of the 78 institutions on the Board’s list hold it, and this is one of them.
It matters most if there is any chance you will practice outside California. It matters less inside California, where a regionally-accredited, Board-listed degree is sufficient.
What the Board requires of any qualifying degree →
What it is, on paper
First distance-education MFT program to receive COAMFTE accreditation. Nine specializations: Child & Adolescent Family Therapy, Couple Therapy, General Family Therapy, LGBTQ Couple & Family Therapy, Medical Family Therapy, Military Family Therapy, Systemic Sex Therapy, Systemic Treatment of Addictions, Trauma-Informed Systemic Therapy. IMPORTANT: 45 credits is below CA's 60-semester-unit floor — verify which NU program is the CA-qualifying one (likely the M.A. Counseling Psychology).
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
We do not require you take the GRE, GMAT or other graduate school entrance examination. source →
How its graduates did on the Board’s exam
Counting every attempt rather than only first attempts, the figure is 51% across 1,661 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, 72% of this school’s 973 first-time candidates passed, against 80% statewide.
Recorded by the Board as National University. 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.
What this number is, and what it is not
It describes candidates, not teaching. In 2022 the Council on Social Work Education removed licensing-exam pass rates from its accreditation standards, saying the data “may not be an equitable measure of program outcomes” — after the social-work exam board’s own analysis found first-time pass rates of 84% for white candidates and 45% for Black candidates. A program that enrolls more career-changers and more students of color will post a lower rate while teaching at least as well. The accrediting body with the most reason to want this metric examined it and stopped using it.
The denominator is not this year’s students. These are people who sat the exam during the window, often several years after graduating and sometimes after the program changed shape or owner.
It is published here because it is a real, official figure that is otherwise almost impossible to find — and it is published on this page only. There is no pass-rate column in the directory, nothing is sorted by it, and no school on this site is ranked against another.
July 2018 - December 2024, pooled (13 semiannual BBS reports) · the Board’s published exam results by school →
What the accreditor makes it publish
In the school’s own words, this counts: “Licensure rate is the percentage of graduates from the cohort year that have achieved ANY level of MFT licensure. For Master's programs only, COAMFTE has established a benchmark of 70% licensure rate for each cohort.” — which is worth reading before the numbers, because it is rarely what the column heading suggests.
FT
| Cohort | Graduated | Reached licensure | In the field |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-2016380 in the cohort | 41.05% | 58.54% | 98.47% |
| 2016-2017332 in the cohort | 34.64% | 56.10% | 96.33% |
| 2017-2018312 in the cohort | 37.50% | 51.85% | 96.26% |
| 2018-2019278 in the cohort | 41.01% | 50.98% | 98.00% |
| 2019-2020351 in the cohort | 57.26% | 51.08% | 96.27% |
Graduation is measured against each school’s own advertised length, which across the twelve accredited programs runs from two years to four and a half — so a low figure often means students chose a longer track rather than that they did not finish. Licensure and placement are usually shares of the graduates who answered a survey, not of the cohort. Both are reasons these numbers describe one program over time and cannot be set against another school’s.
The school’s own disclosure → · most recent 5 cohorts shown
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.
The single question that separates programs. Ask for a list of current sites, and ask plainly whether the program places you or expects you to find your own. A rural or online student unable to find a site cannot graduate.
The Board publishes this by school, so the program cannot be the only source. Ask anyway, and see whether the answer matches.
Per-unit rates move. Multiply by the actual unit count and add campus fees before comparing anything.
The 500 couples-and-families hours are carved out of the 1,750 clinical ones, and they are the category associates most often finish short on. A program placing students in adult individual settings will not generate them.
Sometimes yes, sometimes with extra units, sometimes only in one delivery format. Get it in writing rather than from a brochure.
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.
- No freely-licensed photograph of a National University, Northcentral or John F. Kennedy University campus exists on Wikimedia Commons — only logo files, which are not campus photographs and are not clearly free-licensed. No image included.
- The MAMFT program page lists every clinical course (MFT 6930–6934) at "3.0 Credits," while the program handbook and MFT FAQ both say the clinical courses are 2 credits with a 1-credit capstone. The 22-course California Licensure Track only totals 60 credits under the handbook's figures. Verify with an advisor before budgeting.
- I could not find an archived John F. Kennedy University catalog to prove or disprove a one-for-one continuity between JFKU's M.A. in Counseling Psychology and National's current M.A. in Counseling Psychology (California). The evidence available points to National having run its own counseling psychology master's before the acquisition — a Class of 2011 alumna is quoted on the current page, and the Associate Dean of Operations earned his master's in counseling psychology at National before joining JFKU in 2017 — so the page treats them as distinct rather than asserting a transplant.
- No published cohort size, class size, admit rate or attrition rate for either California-relevant degree, and no state-level breakdown of how many of the 1,275 MAMFT students are in California.
- No published BBS licensure exam pass rate for either program.
- The M.A. Counseling Psychology (California) is not stated to be COAMFTE-accredited anywhere on its page — only the MAMFT and the PhD-MFT carry COAMFTE. That absence is meaningful if COAMFTE matters to you, but the school does not address it directly.
- Reddit could not be searched or fetched from this environment (403). Forum coverage of this school is thin; the substantive first-person material found was on OnlineU, and reviews there predating 2022 describe the Northcentral-era program before the merger.
Sources for this page (13)
- M.A. in Marriage and Family Therapy (MAMFT) program page and course listings
- M.A. in Counseling Psychology (California) program page and course listings
- MAMFT Program Handbook, Spring 2024 (PDF)
- Marriage and Family Therapy FAQ (credits, supervision, placement)
- MFT Program Approvals and Accreditations (COAMFTE, CA-BBS)
- MAMFT Students & Faculty Demographics (n=1,275)
- JFK School of Psychology and Social Sciences
- Michael G. Harris Community Counseling Program (CCP)
- Community Counseling Center — trainee information
- Pioneer Publishers — JFK University announces closure, most programs moving to other institutions (May 2020)
- Wikipedia — John F. Kennedy University (founded 1965, closed 2020)
- National University — National and Northcentral Have Merged (2022)
- OnlineU — National University Master's in Marriage & Family Therapy student reviews