Special Education is of the hottest master's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #8 most popular major in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 41 schools in the Great Lakes Region to determine which ones were the best for special education students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 2,742 master's degrees in special education during the 2022-2023 academic year.
DEBUG: Checking offer "Special Education (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Special Education (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Special Education (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Special Education (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Special Education (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Special Education (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - Special Education (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Grad Cert - Special Education (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Special Education (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Special Education (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Special Education (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Special Education (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 6
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 6 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.8
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 6
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 6 offers with relevance >= 1.0
Choosing a Great Special Education School for Your Master's Degree
The special ed master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality special ed program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we include a school's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a collection of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their master's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your master's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on special education students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other special education students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
Student Debt - How easy is it for special education to pay back their student loans after receiving their master's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized special education related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for special education students working on their master's degree.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Special Education Master's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "education//special-education"
It's difficult to beat Ball State University if you want to pursue a master's degree in special education. Located in the city of Muncie, Ball State is a public university with a very large student population.
Those special education students who get their master's degree from Ball State University receive $3,371 more than the standard special ed student.
Illinois State University is a wonderful option for individuals interested in a master's degree in special education. Illinois State is a very large public university located in the suburb of Normal.
After graduation, special ed master's recipients usually make about $56,893 in their early careers.
Concordia University, Chicago is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in special education. Located in the large suburb of River Forest, Concordia University, Chicago is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.
Special Education master's degree recipients from Concordia University, Chicago receive an earnings boost of around $9,086 above the typical earnings of special education majors.
Any student who is interested in a master's degree in special education needs to look into Kent State University at Kent. Located in the suburb of Kent, Kent State is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Soon after graduating, special ed master's recipients generally earn about $48,430 at the beginning of their careers.
UIUC is a fairly large public university located in the city of Champaign.
Special Education master's degree recipients from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign get an earnings boost of around $6,662 above the typical earnings of special education graduates.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).