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 4 schools in New Mexico to determine which ones were the best for special education students pursuing a master's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 94 master's degrees in special education to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Special Education School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of special education for getting your master's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to special education students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of special education students who choose to seek a master's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How much debt special education students go into to obtain their master's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
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 New Mexico ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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It's difficult to beat New Mexico State University - Main Campus if you wish to pursue a master's degree in special education. NMSU Main Campus is a large public university located in the midsize suburb of Las Cruces.
Master's recipients from the special education program at New Mexico State University - Main Campus get $6,829 more than the standard graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
University of New Mexico - Main Campus is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in special education. UNM is a very large public university located in the city of Albuquerque.
After graduating, special ed master's recipients usually earn an average of $49,070 in the first five years of their career.
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).
Your choice of special education for getting your master's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
