Ranked #8 in popularity, special education is one of the most sought-after master's degree programs in the nation. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 8 schools in Florida to determine which ones were the best for special education students pursuing a master's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 572 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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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 consider a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a host of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their master's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their master's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
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 colleges for special education students working on their master's degree.
The special ed school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Special Education Master's Degree Schools in Florida.
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University of Florida is a wonderful option for students interested in a master's degree in special education. UF is a very large public university located in the midsize city of Gainesville.
After graduating, special ed master's recipients generally make about $51,147 in the first five years of their career.
It's difficult to beat The University of West Florida if you wish to pursue a master's degree in special education. UWF is a fairly large public university located in the rural area of Pensacola.
After graduation, special ed master's recipients usually make an average of $56,136 in the first five years of their career.
University of South Florida - Main Campus is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a master's degree in special education. Located in the city of Tampa, USF Tampa is a public university with a very large student population.
Master's graduates who receive their degree from the special ed program make around $52,101 for their early career.
University of Central Florida is a wonderful option for individuals pursuing a master's degree in special education. Located in the suburb of Orlando, UCF is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those special education students who get their master's degree from University of Central Florida receive $3,492 more than the average special ed grad.
Located in the large suburb of Miami, FIU is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Master's recipients from the special education degree program at Florida International University earn $6,576 more than the typical graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
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).