undergradly.
Major · Family & Consumer Sciences

The community-services bachelor’s that isn’t a Social Work degree

Family and Community Services trains you to coordinate support programs for families, children, and neighborhoods — case management, family advocacy, nonprofit outreach. About 744 students complete it each year across 61 U.S. colleges, with five-year median earnings near $43,463 and a clear bachelor’s-vs-associate’s gap.

Schools offering
61
Annual completions
744
Typical degree level
Associate's + Bachelor's
Median earnings (5yr)
$43k

About this major

Family and Community Services prepares you to design and run the support programs that keep families and neighborhoods functioning — public, private, and voluntary services covering everything from family advocacy to community education. The CIP definition pulls in family-systems theory, human development, social-services delivery, social policy, and the mechanics of voluntary-sector work, so coursework typically spans developmental psychology, intro social-policy, basic research methods, group facilitation, and supervised field placements. Roughly 744 students complete the major each year across 61 U.S. colleges, concentrated at land-grant and regional public schools like Utah Valley University, Michigan State, and the University of Florida.

The major fits students drawn to direct human-services work but who already know they want the community-organization and program-coordination side rather than clinical therapy. Skills that pay off include comfort with ambiguity, plain-language writing, basic data literacy for grant reporting, and the patience to navigate state and federal benefit systems. A second language — Spanish in particular — materially changes job prospects in protective services, refugee resettlement, and Head Start family-engagement roles.

At scale this is a modest, distributed major: the bachelor-level five-year median of $48,175 lands graduates in case management, family-services coordination, nonprofit program work, and CPS intake. The packet’s sole BLS career match — Farm and Home Management Educators at $58,120 — typically requires a master’s, signaling a pattern that recurs across the field. Higher-paying titles such as Social and Community Service Managers cluster at the five-to-ten-year mid-career mark, not at graduation.

Section 3 · Careers

Where this major leads

Occupations most often associated with this major, from the federal BLS+O*NET crosswalk. Job-growth projections and median wages are national.

Occupation Median wage Job growth Typical education
Farm and home management educators $58k -2.5% Master's degree
Section 4 · Earnings

Earnings at a glance

Median graduate earnings from the federal College Scorecard, 5 and 10 years out.

Median 5-year earnings

$43k

Associate's vs Bachelor's — early-career earnings

Associate's

$35k

Bachelor's

$48k

Who this major is for

Strong candidates tend to share a few traits. You bring a steady tolerance for emotionally heavy casework with families in crisis and can hold professional boundaries through it. You like the idea of building and running a program — writing the grant, recruiting volunteers, tracking outcomes — more than delivering clinical therapy. Bilingual capacity, particularly Spanish, fits this major naturally because so many entry roles sit in protective services, family advocacy, and resettlement work.

Reconsider this route if your actual goal is licensed clinical practice — therapy, diagnosis, or insurance-billable counseling — because CIP 19.0707 is not CSWE-accredited and will not qualify you for the LSW exam or advanced-standing MSW admission, where Social Work (CIP 44.0701) does. Reconsider it as well if a $35,000–$50,000 starting band would push you off-track financially, since the associate-vs-bachelor gap of $34,697 to $48,175 is narrow for four-year tuition. Pause too if you prefer developmental research and theory over applied program work — Human Development and Family Studies (CIP 19.0701), with 6,801 annual completions, is the larger and more academic sibling. Pause if you want a clean linear job pipeline; this field rewards graduates who treat the bachelor’s as a launchpad to an MSW, MPA, or MA before midcareer.

Section 6 · Where to study

Top colleges for Family and Community Services

Ranked by annual completions at the associate's or bachelor's level — a proxy for program scale.

College Location Assoc. Bach. Total
Utah Valley University Orem, UT 0 134 134
Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 0 66 66
University of Florida Gainesville, FL 0 63 63
University of Hawaii at Manoa Honolulu, HI 0 61 61
University of Maryland-College Park College Park, MD 0 55 55
East Carolina University Greenville, NC 0 34 34
Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX 0 25 25
University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI 0 25 25
Mount St. Mary's University Emmitsburg, MD 0 24 24
Baker College Owosso, MI 0 23 23
Section 7 · Explore sideways

Related majors to explore

Human Development and Family Studies, General

6,801 completions/yr

Child Care Provider/Assistant

5,421 completions/yr

Child Development

2,480 completions/yr

Child Care and Support Services Management

1,552 completions/yr

Early Childhood and Family Studies

393 completions/yr

Family Systems

316 completions/yr

Human Development, Family Studies, and Related Services, Other

256 completions/yr

Adult Development and Aging

66 completions/yr
Section 9 · Frequently asked

Common questions

Is Family and Community Services the same as a Social Work major?
No, and the distinction matters legally. CIP 19.0707 sits inside Family and Consumer Sciences, not Social Work (CIP 44.0701), and is not CSWE-accredited. That accreditation is what qualifies graduates to sit for state LSW exams or to enter advanced-standing MSW programs. With this degree you can do community case work and family-services coordination, but you cannot register, license, or bill as a social worker.
What jobs can I actually get with a bachelor’s in Family and Community Services?
Realistic entry roles cluster in community-based case management, family advocacy, child or adult protective services intake, domestic-violence and refugee-resettlement programs, Head Start family services, and nonprofit program coordination. Many of these positions are grant-funded and pay in the $35,000 to $50,000 band, which lines up with the major’s associate-level five-year median of $34,697 and bachelor-level median of $48,175. Pay rises with caseload responsibility and bilingual capacity, but rarely passes $60,000 without a graduate credential.
Why do the bachelor’s and associate’s salaries look so close together?
Because the field absorbs both credential levels for similar frontline work. Associate-level graduates report a five-year median of $34,697 and bachelor-level graduates $48,175 — a real gap, but a narrow one for a four-year degree. Many community-services agencies hire on lived experience, language skills, and bilingual case capacity at least as much as on credentials, which compresses early-career wage spreads. The bachelor’s opens supervisory ladders that the associate’s does not, but the climb is slow.
Do I need a master’s for the higher-paying community-services jobs?
For most posted salaries above roughly $60,000, yes. The packet lists Farm and Home Management Educators at $58,120, but the typical entry credential is a master’s. Social and Community Service Manager titles around $77,000 are mid-career roles, generally five to ten years past the bachelor’s, and a master’s — typically an MSW, MPA, or MA in human services — is the standard ticket to clinical, supervisory, or grant-management work.
What if I want to do clinical or therapy work eventually?
Plan on a CSWE-accredited MSW or a counseling-licensure master’s after this degree. Family and Community Services is an undergraduate platform, not a clinical credential — therapy, diagnosis, and insurance-billable counseling all require licensure tied to a specific accredited graduate program. Choose your senior-year electives, internships, and GPA targets with that MSW application in mind, because admissions committees look closely at field placements and human-services exposure.
How is this different from Human Development and Family Studies?
Both sit in CIP family 19.07 and share core coursework on family systems, child development, and community well-being. Human Development and Family Studies (CIP 19.0701) is the broader umbrella major and is much larger nationally, with about 6,801 completions a year compared with 744 for Family and Community Services. The 19.0707 designation tilts more applied — outreach, voluntary-sector activity, social-policy basics, and community education — while 19.0701 leans toward developmental theory and research methods.