Nashville City Guide
ABA Programs in Nashville
Nashville has one of the most significant developmental disabilities research centers in the United States and the second-lowest behavior analyst pay of any metro in this guide. It is also home to the most expensive ABA master's on this site. Those three facts need to be read together, and this page does that rather than burying the awkward one.
Key Takeaways
- 01The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, founded in 1965, holds three federal designations at once — a University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities, an Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center, and the Vanderbilt Consortium LEND. Only a handful of American institutions carry all three.
- 02Vanderbilt's M.Ed. in Applied Behavior Analysis runs 30 to 31 credits in about 15 months full-time at $2,405 per credit hour — the highest published per-credit rate of any program on this site.
- 03Lipscomb University runs a 36-credit M.S. and a certificate in Applied Behavior Analysis at $953 per credit, delivered synchronously online and hybrid — under half the Vanderbilt rate.
- 04Nashville's metro median of $50,810 (BLS OEWS May 2025, SOC 21-1018) is the second-lowest of the fifty metros on this site, and housing runs 4.6% above the national average.
- 05Tennessee requires 32 continuing education hours every two years, which is at the heavier end of state requirements. Budget for it.
Nashville is the clearest case in this guide of a metro whose academic standing and whose pay point in opposite directions, and it is worth setting both out plainly.
The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, founded in 1965, holds a University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities designation, an Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center, and the Vanderbilt Consortium LEND program. Very few institutions anywhere hold all three, and its behavioral research is among the most influential in the field. Vanderbilt Peabody College's M.Ed. in Applied Behavior Analysis is 30 to 31 credits in about fifteen months full-time — and it costs $2,405 per credit hour, the highest published rate of any program covered on this site. Lipscomb University offers the alternative at $953 per credit across 36 credits, delivered synchronously online and hybrid.
Against that, the metro pays a median of $50,810 for the occupation behavior analysts are counted in — second-lowest of the fifty metros in this guide — while housing runs 4.6% above the national average, which is unusual for a Southern metro and a consequence of a decade of rapid growth. The arithmetic of paying Vanderbilt rates to work in this market does not obviously close, and anyone considering it should do that calculation deliberately rather than assume the name covers it.
Metro scope
Includes: Nashville, Murfreesboro, Franklin, Hendersonville, Smyrna, Brentwood, Gallatin, Mount Juliet. The Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin metro, covering Davidson County and the thirteen counties around it — the city, the fast-growing Williamson County suburbs through Franklin and Brentwood, Rutherford County to the southeast through Murfreesboro and Smyrna, and Sumner and Wilson counties to the northeast.
Note: Tennessee is a single-state metro here. Tennessee licenses behavior analysts through the Applied Behavior Analyst Licensing Committee and has since 2014, with 32 continuing education hours required every two years — a heavier CE load than most states. Your BCBA is the qualifying credential and the state license is your practice authority. What is locally distinctive is not the border but the growth: Williamson and Rutherford counties have been among the fastest-growing in the Southeast, and provider capacity has trailed population in both, which is where the unmet demand sits.
The programs
Every one of the BCBA programs in Nashville
2 programs
Lipscomb University — M.S. and Certificate in Applied Behavior Analysis
Green Hills, south Nashville; synchronous online and hybrid · Nashville, TN · Live online sessions with some hybrid contact
- Tuition
- $953 per credit hour, the same rate for all students
- Length
- 36 credits, 2 years
- Format
- Synchronous online with hybrid elements
- Accreditation
- BCBA Pathway 2 coursework; Lipscomb University College of Education
- Part-time
- Designed for working professionals, with live evening sessions
- At $953 per credit it is under half the Vanderbilt rate, and the difference over a degree is substantial
- Synchronous delivery means live teaching and a cohort rather than recorded lectures
- A certificate option runs alongside the M.S. for people who already hold a qualifying master's
- Thirty-six credits against Vanderbilt's 30 to 31, so the credit gap partly offsets the price gap — but only partly
- Not ABAI-accredited; no Tennessee program is
Vanderbilt University Peabody College — M.Ed. in Applied Behavior Analysis
Peabody campus, West End · Nashville, TN · On-campus with online options
- Tuition
- $2,405 per credit hour, the same rate for all students
- Length
- 30 to 31 credits, about 15 months full-time
- Format
- On-campus with online options
- Accreditation
- BCBA Pathway 2 coursework; Vanderbilt Peabody College
- Part-time
- The 15-month design assumes full-time study; confirm alternatives with the department
- Fifteen months full-time across 30 to 31 credits — the fastest campus route in the Southeast
- Peabody College sits alongside the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, which holds a UCEDD, an IDDRC and a LEND program
- At $2,405 per credit this is the most expensive ABA program on this site; over 30 credits the total is substantial
- The name and the research environment are real assets, particularly if a doctorate is in your plans
- Weigh the cost against a metro median of $50,810 before committing — the payback period in this market is long
Cost of living
What it costs to live in Nashville while you study
Nashville is no longer a cheap Southern metro. The BEA index puts housing 4.6% above the national average — modest by coastal standards, but well above where Memphis, Birmingham or Louisville sit — while the whole basket runs 3.7% below national. Tennessee levies no state income tax, which is worth real money and does not appear in the price index. The metro sprawls across fourteen counties and the growth corridors run far out into Williamson and Rutherford.
Housing, 2024
104.6
4.6% above the national average
Everything, 2024
96.3
3.7% below the national average
Metro median pay covers
$52,762
of national-average spending
Housing runs 4.6% above the national average, which is the single biggest reason the overall cost of living lands where it does.
Both figures are BEA Regional Price Parities for Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin, TN, 2024, where the national average is 100. Housing is the services-housing component; the second figure is the whole basket.
Housing price level
4.6% above the national average
BEA Regional Price Parity for housing, 2024; Memphis runs 20.2% below
All-items price level
3.7% below the national average
BEA Regional Price Parity, all items, 2024
State income tax
None
Not captured by the price index, and worth real money on a professional salary
Transit
WeGo bus and the Star commuter rail
Limited; a fourteen-county caseload is a car proposition
Tuition, Lipscomb M.S. (all students)
$953 per credit hour
Flat rate for all students; 36 credits
Tuition, Vanderbilt M.Ed. (all students)
$2,405 per credit hour
The highest published per-credit rate of any program on this site; 30 to 31 credits
Tennessee CE requirement
32 hours every two years
At the heavier end of state continuing education requirements
Clinical fieldwork
BCBA certification in Nashville: where Middle Tennessee students do supervised fieldwork
Nashville's fieldwork market is unusually strong at the top and ordinary below it. The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center has been working on developmental disabilities since 1965 and holds three separate federal designations; Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt is the region's pediatric hospital. Below those sit Metro Nashville Public Schools, the fast-growing suburban districts, and a private agency layer funded through TennCare and commercial insurance.
Vanderbilt Kennedy Center
The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, founded 1965, is Tennessee's UCEDD, holds an Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center and runs the Vanderbilt Consortium LEND program.
Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt
Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital is the region's pediatric academic medical center and the most competitive clinical placement in Middle Tennessee.
Metro Nashville Public Schools
Metro Nashville Public Schools serves Davidson County, and the Williamson and Rutherford county districts cover the fastest-growing suburban areas.
Tennessee Early Intervention System
TEIS places practitioners in home- and community-based early intervention across Middle Tennessee, a route into supervised experience with the under-threes.
TennCare and commercial agencies
Providers funded through TennCare and commercial insurance operate across the fourteen-county metro, with the thinnest coverage relative to population in Williamson and Rutherford.
Hiring market
Major ABA employers across the Nashville metro
Vanderbilt dominates the top of this market in a way few institutions dominate any metro: the Kennedy Center, the children's hospital and Peabody College are all one university. Below that the market is agency-led and competitive, which is the most plausible reason a metro with this much research standing pays as little as it does. Institutional prestige at the top of a market does not raise wages across it.
Vanderbilt Kennedy Center
University center for developmental disabilities
Tennessee's UCEDD, an IDDRC and the Vanderbilt Consortium LEND host, working on developmental disabilities since 1965. A training destination and a research employer.
Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt
Pediatric academic medical center
The region's children's hospital, hiring into developmental and behavioral services with academic medical center pay and benefits.
Metro Nashville Public Schools
Public school district
The Davidson County district, employing behavior specialists across special education services with Tennessee public pension membership.
Williamson County Schools
Public school district
One of Tennessee's highest-performing and fastest-growing districts, in the metro's southern suburbs.
TennCare and commercial ABA providers
Private agencies
The bulk of the metro's behavior-analytic employment, in a competitive agency market that holds rates down.
Metro pay
BCBA salary in the Nashville metro
Metro median
$50,810
National median
$59,350
10th percentile
$37,380
90th percentile
$78,000
BLS metro median, May 2025
$50,810
$8,540 below the national median
Cost of living, 2024
96.3
3.7% below the national average
Worth nationally
$52,762
the same pay in national-average dollars
Because prices run 3.7% below the national average, $50,810 here goes about as far as $52,762 would nationally.
BLS does not publish a separate occupation for behavior analysts. This is the May 2025 median for SOC 21-1018 (Substance Abuse, Behavioral Disorder, and Mental Health Counselors), the category BCBAs are counted in, which also contains counseling roles that typically pay less. Read it as a floor for the metro, not as BCBA pay. Wages: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin, TN. Cost of living is the BEA Regional Price Parity for the metro, all items, 2024, where the national average is 100. It is the most recent year BEA publishes, so it sits one year behind the wage figure. Prices: BEA Regional Price Parities.
The published figure for this metro is $50,810, the BLS OEWS May 2025 median for SOC 21-1018, Substance Abuse, Behavioral Disorder, and Mental Health Counselors, across the Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin metro. That is $8,540 below the national median of $59,350 for the same code, and the second-lowest of the fifty metros on this site. BLS publishes no separate occupation for behavior analysts, and SOC 21-1018 also contains counseling roles requiring neither a master's nor board certification, so read $50,810 as a floor rather than as BCBA pay.
The 10th percentile is $37,380 and the 90th is $78,000. Prices across the metro run 3.7% below the national average, so $50,810 goes about as far as $52,762 would nationally — a small improvement that does not change the position much, because housing runs 4.6% above the national average and is the line a renter feels.
This is the honest version of the Nashville calculation. The metro has one of the country's most significant developmental disabilities research centers and the most expensive ABA master's on this site. It also pays behavior analysts less than almost anywhere covered here. Those facts are compatible — institutional prestige at the top of a market does not lift wages across it, particularly in a competitive agency market — but they do mean that borrowing $70,000 or more to train here and then working here is a decision that needs arithmetic rather than enthusiasm. For national context see our BCBA salary guide.
Other cities
Other cities in Tennessee
We also cover one other metro in Tennessee. If you can commute, comparing them is worth ten minutes — the program list changes, but so does the fieldwork market, and that is the half your location actually constrains.
Nearby metros
If you are flexible on metro
Tennessee's other metros pay similarly and cost less. If the draw of Nashville is the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, that is a reason to train here; if it is the market, the comparison is worth making carefully.
ABA Programs in Memphis
Three hours west, under the same Tennessee license, with housing 20.2% below the national average.
ABA Programs in Louisville
Three hours north, in the Kentucky licensing regime, with a 30-credit online M.Ed. at the University of Louisville.
ABA Programs in Tennessee
The full state picture: every Tennessee program, the 2014 license, and the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center's place in it.
Common questions
Frequently Asked Questions
01How many ABA programs are in Nashville?+
02Do I need a license to practice ABA in Nashville?+
03Is Vanderbilt worth $2,405 per credit for an ABA master's?+
04How much do BCBAs make in Nashville?+
05Why does Nashville pay so little given the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center?+
06Is Nashville a good place to start a BCBA career?+
Sources
- Vanderbilt Peabody College, M.Ed. in Applied Behavior Analysis
- Lipscomb University, M.S. and Certificate in Applied Behavior Analysis
- Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities
- Tennessee Applied Behavior Analyst Licensing Committee
- BACB, U.S. Licensure of Behavior Analysts by State
- BLS OEWS May 2025, Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin MSA (SOC 21-1018)
- ABAI Accredited Programs Directory