BLS's administrator-license line for principals is written for public schools — its principal career page does not describe a license requirement for private school principals.
The degree still runs the pipeline: BLS says principals typically need a master's degree in education leadership or education administration, alongside several years of teaching experience, and NAIS's aspiring-heads fellowship asks candidates for one (in progress counts).
Charter rules vary by state.
Below: what the degree covers, the requirements picture in each sector, online options, and the fellowships that run alongside it.
What an educational leadership degree covers
An educational leadership degree is graduate training in running schools: the M.A. and M.Ed. in educational leadership or education administration, and, at the doctorate level, the Ed.D.
BLS's sentence for the principals occupation is a useful anchor: “Principals typically need a master's degree in education leadership or education administration,” alongside several years of teaching experience.
The degree family has real variations inside it.
At the Klingenstein Center at Teachers College, the two-summers program ends in an M.A. at 32 Teachers College credits; students who transfer 28 qualified prior graduate credits — 60 total — finish with a Master of Education instead.
The same center's full-year route is a 32-credit, two-semester, full-time in-person M.A. in Private School Leadership that requires at least two years of full-time school work experience.
It can be paired with a year at Columbia Business School or INSEAD for an MA/MBA.
There is a doctorate rung too: Teachers College offers, with the Klingenstein Center, a hybrid Ed.D. in Executive Leadership — a Global and Independent Education Leadership pathway that takes three years with 30 transferred credits.
What the coursework covers is easiest to see in the programs that publish it.
Loyola Marymount's certificate in Catholic school administration, a bridge into its online M.A. in Educational Leadership, names its ground as mission, faith and spiritual leadership, operations and instructional leadership.
Practice-side programs teach the same territory from the doing end: Relay's Leverage Leadership Institute runs one-day workshops for the leaders who coach teachers — instructional coaches, assistant principals, department chairs and principals.
Independent schools also have a dedicated institution in this space.
The Klingenstein Center traces to 1977, when the Klingenstein Fund created the Joseph Klingenstein Fellows — described as the first university-based leadership training for the independent school field — and it reports nearly 4,000 alumni.
Format varies: two summers or a full year, an M.A. or an M.Ed., a master's or an Ed.D.
The subject underneath does not — the leadership of a school.
Private school vs charter requirements
Start with the line BLS draws, because it separates the sectors cleanly: “Most states require public school principals to be licensed as school administrators.”
That licensing sentence is a public-school rule — BLS's principal career page does not describe a license requirement for private school principals.
What stands in for a license at a private school is the school's own bar.
The shape of the head track shows up in NAIS's candidate requirements for its Fellowship for Aspiring School Heads: a master's degree (or one in progress), three or more years as an independent school administrator, and the sitting head's backing.
The role itself — what a division head runs, the reporting line to the head of school, and how the title maps to principal — is the division head career guide's territory; this page stays on the degree question.
The degree shows up across private-school leadership, but it is not a universal gate.
In NCES's 2020-21 survey, 28.2% of private school principals' highest degree was a bachelor's or less, against 1.4% at traditional public schools and 8.1% at charter schools; 9.3% of private school principals held a doctorate or first-professional degree.
Read those figures as a labor-market description, not permission.
The posting decides what the school asks for, and a finished leadership degree is the credential a hiring committee can point to when it asks whether you can run a division on day one.
Charter schools run on their own lane of state law.
Whether a charter principal sits under a state's administrator-license rule varies by state charter law, so confirm the current rule with your state education agency and your authorizer before you assume either way.
For context on the teaching side (a teacher figure, not a principal rule): in NCES's 2020-21 data, 75.3% of public charter school teachers held a regular state teaching certificate and 11.5% held no certification.
For the charter leader career itself, the charter school principal career guide owns the question.
One rung down, the degree question for assistant principals is its own page: the assistant principal career guide covers that role's path.
Career information, not legal advice: degree and licensure expectations vary by school and state. Confirm with the school, your state education agency and, for a charter school, your authorizer.
Requirements are set school by school — verify before you enroll
Online options: hybrid and fully online programs
The two examples below run at least partly online, and one of them is built to be finished while the student keeps a full-time school job.
The Klingenstein Two-Summers Master's in independent school leadership is a 32-credit Teachers College program built that way: about 4-5 weeks in person in New York in each of two summers (12 credits each), plus 2 credits online each fall and spring while working full-time.
The program estimates total tuition and fees for its 2026-2028 cohort at $71,000, excluding housing and travel.
Merit-based Klingenstein scholarships are available, and the published final application deadline for the 2027-2029 cohort is January 15, 2027.
Loyola Marymount runs the fully online lane.
Its Certificate in Catholic School Administration is an 11-month, four-course cohort (10 graduate units) covering mission, faith and spiritual leadership, operations and instructional leadership.
The certificate's units apply toward LMU's online M.A. in Educational Leadership, which asks for 21 more units.
LMU limits online enrollment to residents of the states its program page lists, so check that list before you apply.
These are two programs our research read directly, not a ranked list of online educational leadership degrees — we did not verify how every university's program runs.
Each program page carries the current format, the state list and the deadlines, and those details change.
Alternatives: programs and fellowships
A degree and a fellowship run as two lanes, and a fellowship can ask for the degree first.
NAIS's yearlong Fellowship for Aspiring School Heads (2026-27) costs $6,500 for members and $8,150 for nonmembers.
Its candidate requirements read like a head-track job posting: a master's degree (or one in progress), three or more years as an independent school administrator, and the sitting head's backing.
NAIS's Leadership Academy gathers the rest of the lineup: the School Leadership Institute (June 23-26, 2026), the Diversity Leadership Institute (July 26-31, 2026), the Institute for New Heads and the yearlong aspiring-heads fellowship.
The Institute for New Heads is the weeklong summer program for heads starting their first or second year; its 2026 session ran July 11-17 at the Emory Conference Center in Atlanta.
Registration in 2026 ran from $4,775 (member early-bird) to $6,925 (nonmember), with hotel and all meals included.
One Klingenstein option is aimed past the division headship entirely.
The Heads of Schools Program is a fully funded two-week fellowship at Teachers College for sitting independent and international school heads; division heads are not eligible.
It covers tuition, hotel and some cohort activities but not meals or travel.
The 2027 session runs January 18-29, 2027, and the application fee is $75 — for a division head, that eligibility line is the map, and NAIS's aspiring-heads fellowship is the rung before the head's seat.
Charter-side and practice-side leaders have their own lane.
Relay's Leverage Leadership Institute runs one-day workshops for leaders who coach teachers — instructional coaches, assistant principals, department chairs and principals — and Relay also runs year-long fellowships for principals and principal supervisors.
The deepest alternative is the founder route.
The Building Excellent Schools Fellowship is a four- or five-year process to found a public charter school: one or two years of pre-authorization training (300+ hours, 20+ school studies, at least two extended residencies) followed by three years of post-authorization launch support.
Fellows may receive a $100,000 fellowship grant in the first training year, plus healthcare reimbursement up to $6,000 individual or $8,000 family and up to $5,000 in moving expenses.
BES's requirements: a bachelor's degree, at least 8 years of professional experience including instructional work, at least 2 years supervising adults in a PreK-12 setting, and a commitment to lead the school in its community for at least 10 years.
The track record is BES's own count: since 2001, it says, its fellows have founded more than 220 public charter schools currently serving over 75,000 students.
None of this replaces reading the entry requirements.
Each program above publishes its own candidate profile, and for admission those requirements — not a state rule — decide your route.