Nova Southeastern University Home to One of Nation’s 50 Most Affordable Marriage & Family Therapy Programs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FORT LAUDERDALE-DAVIE, Fla. – The marriage and family therapy program at Nova Southeastern University (NSU) was recently ranked as one of the 50 most affordable programs in the United States by Best Counseling Degrees. NSU’s program was ranked 26^th in the nation, and it is the only Florida college or university to make the list.

Best Counseling Degrees’ mission is to provide high quality, expert information and resources for individuals considering a degree in counseling or related fields. In compiling its list, Best Counseling Degrees used the following criteria:

• Program had to be accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education (COAMFTE);
• Using the Institute of Education Science’s College Navigator, information was compiled on average graduate tuition for the 2014/15 school year – the schools were then ranked by affordability.

“We are proud to be recognized as providing quality educational programs that are affordable for today’s students,” said Honggang Yang, Ph.D., dean of NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. “Ensuring we provide top-quality educational programs in an affordable manner is vital for NSU, and something we continually strive for.”

NSU offers a variety of programs in marriage and family therapy. They include a Ph.D. in family therapy and a doctorate in marriage and family therapy (D.M.F.T.)

The Ph.D. in family therapy program prepares graduates for careers as therapists, professors, researchers, supervisors, and senior clinicians. This is a 96 credit-hour program designed for individuals holding master’s degrees who wish to fully grasp both the historical as well as cutting edge theory informing the current practice of family therapy. The program is also dedicated to understanding the relationship between theoretical ideas and the variety of established and emerging schools of family therapy.

The program is designed to enhance students’ clinical skills in order to become top level practitioners, while at the same time demonstrating the place of qualitative and quantitative research in this pursuit. Graduates of the program should look forward to productive careers in academic, supervisory, clinical, and community-based employment settings. Many also become organizational consultants and coaches, private practitioners, healthcare administrators, along with various career pathways.

The Doctorate in Marriage and Family Therapy (D.M.F.T.) is a practitioner oriented terminal degree. The primary emphasis of the D.M.F.T. degree program is different from the Ph.D. program in that it seeks specifically to produce professionals whose chief contributions will be in the clinical rather than academic sphere. The D.M.F.T. is a 78 credit-hour program designed for individuals holding master’s degrees that prepares graduates for careers as private practitioners, agency administrators, clinical supervisors, and senior clinicians. The D.M.F.T. program is designed to expand and enhance a student’s existing clinical skills in order to become top level practitioners, while at the same time demonstrating the place of program/clinical research in this pursuit. The Department of Family Therapy has full and part time faculty and supervisors that represent diversity in race, cultural, gender, age, sexual orientation, and religion. The student body reflects the rich cultural diversity of the University and South Florida as far as race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and age.

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About Nova Southeastern University (NSU):Located in beautiful Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Nova Southeastern University (NSU) is a dynamic research institution dedicated to providing high-quality educational programs at the undergraduate, graduate, and first-professional degree levels. A private, not-for-profit institution with more than 24,000 students, NSU has campuses in Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Jacksonville, Miami, Miramar, Orlando, Palm Beach, and Tampa, Florida, as well as San Juan, Puerto Rico, while maintaining a presence online globally. For more than 50 years, NSU has been awarding degrees in a wide range of fields, while fostering groundbreaking research and an impactful commitment to community. Classified as a research university with “high research activity” by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, NSU is 1 of only 37 universities nationwide to also be awarded Carnegie’s Community Engagement Classification, and is also the largest private, not-for-profit institution in the United States that meets the U.S. Department of Education’s criteria as a Hispanic-serving Institution. Please visit www.nova.edu for more information.

September 8, 2015

Joe Donzelli | Office of Public Affairs
954-262-2159 (office)|954-661-4571 (cell)
jdonzelli@nova.edu | www.nova.edu