If you pursue a master's degree in special education, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #8 most popular program in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
College Factual looked at 11 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Special Education Master's Degree Schools in Massachusetts ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 744 master's degrees in special education to qualified students.
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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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a quality 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 different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of master's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their master's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
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 complete 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 picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Special Education Master's Degree Schools in Massachusetts ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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It's difficult to beat Boston University if you wish to pursue a master's degree in special education. Located in the large city of Boston, Boston U is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Soon after graduation, special ed master's recipients typically make around $59,238 at the beginning of their careers.
Boston College is a great option for students interested in a master's degree in special education. Located in the small city of Chestnut Hill, Boston College is a private not-for-profit college with a fairly large student population.
After graduating, special ed master's recipients generally earn around $59,583 in their early careers.
It is hard to beat Bridgewater State University if you want to pursue a master's degree in special education. Located in the suburb of Bridgewater, Bridgewater State is a public university with a moderately-sized student population.
After graduating, special ed master's recipients generally make around $57,760 at the beginning of their careers.
Located in the city of Boston, UMass Boston is a public university with a large student population.
Those special education students who get their master's degree from University of Massachusetts - Boston earn $7,602 more than the average special ed graduate.
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).
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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
