If you plan on getting your bachelor's degree in special education, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #55 in the country in terms of popularity. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
College Factual looked at 51 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Special Education Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Southeast Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 1,653 bachelor's degrees in special education to qualified students.
Choosing a Great Special Education School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The special ed bachelor'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 bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we include a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a combination of various 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 bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor'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 - The number of special education students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
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 much debt special education students go into to obtain their bachelor'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 full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for special education students working on their bachelor'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 Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Southeast Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study Special Education in the Southeast Region
The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in special education. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
10 Top Southeast Region Schools for a Bachelor's in Special Ed
It's hard to beat University of Georgia if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in special education. UGA is a fairly large public university located in the city of Athens.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the special ed program report average early career income of $43,137.
Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in special education needs to check out University of North Carolina at Charlotte. UNC Charlotte is a very large public university located in the large city of Charlotte.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the special ed program earn an average of $42,692 in the first couple years of their career.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in special education has to take a look at East Carolina University. Located in the city of Greenville, ECU is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the special ed program report average early career wages of $44,185.
Located in the medium-sized city of Tuscaloosa, UA is a public university with a very large student population.
Those special education students who get their bachelor's degree from The University of Alabama receive $2,316 more than the standard special ed student.
Located in the suburb of Orlando, UCF is a public university with a very large student population.
Special Education bachelor's degree recipients from University of Central Florida receive an earnings boost of around $4,832 above the typical income of special education graduates.
Here are some additional great schools for Special Education students in the Southeast Region that almost earned our Best Special Education Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Southeast Region award.
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).