What Does a School Principal Do?
A school principal runs one school and answers for what happens inside it: how well students learn, how teachers are hired and coached, whether the building is safe and whether the budget balances. The day moves between reading assessment results, sitting in on classes, meeting a family about a discipline decision, approving a purchase and dealing with whatever broke overnight. Instructional leadership, staffing, operations and community relations all land on the same desk, and the mix shifts by the hour.
Most principals lead an elementary, middle or high school and report to a superintendent or an assistant superintendent. Under them sit assistant principals, teachers, counselors, aides and custodial staff. The principal sets the school's academic goals, evaluates teachers, builds the master schedule and carries the accountability for attendance, test results, graduation and safety. Much of the work is people work: finding the right teachers, coaching the ones who struggle and keeping morale steady through a long year.
The job sits between the classroom and the central office. An instructional coordinator shapes curriculum and teacher training across several schools without owning a building, and a superintendent runs a whole district from headquarters. The principal is the leader who stays close to students, staff and the neighborhood the school serves, and who is the school's public face when something goes well or badly.
Where Do School Principals Work?
School principals work in public, charter and private K-12 schools, and the type of school changes both the job and the paycheck. The BLS counts about 74 percent of principals in local public schools and about 21 percent in private schools (Occupational Outlook Handbook). Public schools generally pay on a published administrator schedule, which varies with district resources. Charter and private schools set their own pay: a well-funded independent school may pay its head very well, while a small parochial school or a new charter may pay less than the district next door. A published schedule is predictable, which counts for a lot over a career.
Size and grade level matter too. Larger secondary schools run complicated schedules and add athletics, graduation and college placement to the workload, and administrator schedules often reward that complexity. Leading two thousand students and a hundred staff is a different job from leading a few hundred children in a small elementary school.
Rural principals can carry a wider range of duties, since a small district has few central-office staff to share transportation problems, special education paperwork and community events. Living costs are usually lower there too.
How Do You Become a School Principal With an Online Master's Degree?
You become a school principal by teaching first, then earning a master's degree in educational leadership, which an online program can deliver while you keep your classroom job, and finally holding a state administrator license. A master's is effectively the entry credential: the usual programs are the master's in educational leadership and administration and the master's in educational administration and supervision.
The license itself comes from your state, and its name varies. The BLS says most states require public school principals to hold a state administrator license, requirements generally include passing an exam and a background check, and principals in private schools are not required to have a state-issued license. States commonly add teaching experience, a graduate degree in school administration and a supervised administrative internship. Many new principals serve as an assistant principal first, which is where they learn discipline, scheduling and operations before taking full charge of a building. The licensure guide covers what each state asks of a teacher who earns the degree online.
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Teach and Earn a License
Finish a bachelor's degree, usually in elementary education or a teaching subject, and earn your state teaching license. Then spend years in the classroom, because the BLS lists five years or more of related work experience as typical for principals.
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Choose an Online Master's in Educational Leadership
Enroll in a master's in educational leadership and administration or a close relative such as educational administration and supervision. Coursework usually covers school law, finance and instructional supervision. Confirm that the program leads to the administrator license in the state where you plan to work.
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Complete the Internship and Pass the Exam
Programs commonly require a supervised internship under a working principal, where you carry real leadership duties at a school near you. After it, you sit for your state's school-leader or administrator exam to earn the credential.
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Move Into a Leadership Role
Take a school-leadership job, most often assistant principal, to build experience with operations and staff. From there, apply for principal openings in the districts and school types you want.
Which Online Master's Programs Lead to a School Principal Job?
Online master's programs in educational leadership lead to a school principal job more directly than any other graduate field, because they are built around the administrator license. The ranking below and the all-field national list both use federal data on degrees awarded and graduate tuition, and each school appears once.
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Online Master's in Educational Leadership
280 fully online programs ranked
The direct route: programs in school leadership, administration and supervision, the degrees principals most often hold.
Top score University of the Cumberlands, 95.2
See the Ranking -
Best Online Master's in Education Programs
1,771 fully online programs ranked
Every fully online master's in education on one list, for teachers who are still deciding between leadership, curriculum and other fields.
Top score University of the Cumberlands, 95.2
See the Ranking
How Much Does a School Principal Make in 2027?
A school principal makes a median of $105,870 a year, about $50.90 an hour, on the May 2025 federal wage survey, and eight in ten earn between $76,280 and $167,770. That median pay is a midpoint and not a starting offer, since half of school principals earn less.
These wage figures come from the BLS category for education administrators at the kindergarten through secondary level, the category the principal job is counted in. It covers 328,330 people, and the $116,100 mean sits above the median because a cluster of very high earners pulls the average up.
The BLS notes that principals typically work year round and do not have summers off, even when students are not in school, so the long summer break that draws people to teaching mostly disappears. That longer year may be part of why the pay is the highest among the eight education careers here. A newly appointed principal in a small rural district is more likely to sit near the bottom of the range, around $76,280, while a veteran leading a large high school in a wealthy suburb can reach the top tenth, above $167,770.
Median pay for school principals runs from $80,130 to $166,590 across 50 states, the District of Columbia and 2 territories in the same survey, and the school principal salary guide sets each one beside the other education careers.
What Is the Job Outlook for School Principals?
The job outlook for school principals is flat to soft, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics projecting a 2 percent decline in employment from 2024 to 2034. A district needs a new principal position mainly when it opens a new school, so the number of principal positions barely moves.
Hiring still happens, because the principalship loses people steadily. The BLS expects about 20,800 openings a year, and it says most come from principals who retire or move to other occupations. The National Center for Education Statistics found that about 11 percent of public school principals left the profession between the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years, and that 63 percent of those who left were still working in K-12 education in another role.
For a candidate, that means the way in is replacing someone who leaves, not riding a growth wave. An assistant principal or teacher-leader holding the right license is positioned to compete for those openings, and willingness to lead a challenging building or relocate often decides how quickly the first principal job arrives.
Is Becoming a School Principal Worth It?
Becoming a school principal is worth it for educators who like running things and can carry responsibility without an off switch, and the pay backs the effort: at $105,870 the median is the highest of the eight education careers we cover. The people who do well are decisive, calm under pressure and comfortable being the person everyone looks to when something goes wrong. If the pull toward the job is a love of teaching itself, remember that principals spend most of their time on adults and systems, not on students directly.
The costs are real. The role means long days, evening events and a phone that rings in July, and principals absorb conflict from staff, families and the district office while answering for outcomes they only partly control. People leave the job steadily, which is part of why openings keep appearing even though the field is not growing.
On the money side, the master's degree is the main expense. At the 280 fully online master's programs in educational leadership we rank, the median annual graduate charge is $15,391 out of state and $10,782 in state (2023-24). Online students may pay either rate depending on the school, so check which one applies to you, and the jump from a teaching salary to a principal salary can repay the cost over a career, especially in higher-paying states.
If you want leadership without the building-level pressure, two neighbors are worth weighing. An instructional coordinator shapes curriculum and teacher development with less operational stress, and a postsecondary education administrator leads inside a college or university instead of a K-12 school. The people who stay in the principalship tend to see it as a way to shape a school's culture and results, not as an exit from the classroom.