Engineering students deciding whether to stay for a master's degree often hear that it counts toward a professional engineering license. It can, under the model that most state boards draw on, but the credit is narrower than the shorthand suggests: one year, with conditions, and only where a state board has adopted the rule.

The model is the NCEES Model Law, published by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying, the national organization of state engineering and surveying licensing boards. NCEES writes the exams and the model; each state board writes its own law. This guide reads the current version, dated August 2025.

The baseline: four years after a qualifying degree

The Model Law asks a PE applicant for three things: a qualifying education, passing scores on the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) and Principles and Practice of Engineering (PE) exams plus any state-specific exam, and a record of progressive engineering experience. For an applicant whose degree is an engineering bachelor's from a program accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, an EAC-accredited engineering master's, or a degree shown to meet the NCEES Engineering Education Standard, the experience requirement is four years after the qualifying degree. For a graduate of an engineering technology bachelor's program accredited by ABET's Engineering Technology Accreditation Commission, it is six years.

What a graduate degree changes

The Model Law then lists graduate degrees that may stand in for part of that time:

  • A master's degree in engineering acceptable to the board, held by someone with a qualifying engineering bachelor's: three years of experience after the bachelor's is conferred, instead of four.
  • A master's in engineering acceptable to the board, held by an engineering technology bachelor's graduate: five years after the bachelor's, instead of six.
  • An earned doctorate in engineering acceptable to the board, with the FE exam passed: two years of experience.
  • An earned doctorate in engineering acceptable to the board, for an applicant who elects not to take the FE exam: four years.

In practice, then, the master's is worth one year off the clock for both bachelor's routes, and a doctorate is worth two for an applicant who also passes the FE.

The three conditions

The same section sets limits that decide whether a particular degree earns the credit:

  • No double counting. A graduate degree used to meet the education requirement cannot also earn experience credit. An applicant whose only accredited degree is the master's uses it as the education, and the four-year clock runs from there.
  • Relevance. The graduate degree has to be relevant to the applicant's area of professional practice. A structural engineer with a master's in an unrelated field should not assume the year counts.
  • Not at the same time as work. Experience credit for a graduate degree cannot be earned concurrently with work experience credit. Someone who works full time while finishing a part-time master's cannot count the same months twice.

Where the model meets state law

The phrase acceptable to the board does real work in this rule. Each state board decides which graduate degrees it accepts and whether it has adopted this substitution at all, and boards that license by discipline may look closely at whether the degree matches the discipline of the license sought. The Model Law's own footnotes note that boards differ on whether they license by discipline.

The exam timing is a separate question from the experience count. Many boards let candidates sit for the PE exam before the experience is complete; the experience still has to be documented before a license is issued.

What to do before enrolling

A student weighing a master's partly for licensure can check three things: whether the target state's board has adopted the graduate-degree substitution, whether the planned program would be acceptable to that board for the discipline in question, and whether working during the program would make the credit moot under the no-concurrent-credit rule. Each state board's rules page answers the first, and most boards will answer the second in writing.

Licensure and renewal rules differ by state and change over time. Check the current requirements with your state licensing board before you act on them.

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