2024 Best Early Childhood Education Schools in the Great Lakes Region
87Colleges in the Great Lakes Region
4,486Child development Degrees Awarded
Ranked #34 in popularity, early childhood education is one of the most sought-after degree programs in the nation. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
College Factual reviewed 87 schools in the Great Lakes Region to determine which ones were the best for degree seekers in the field of early childhood education. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 4,486 degrees in early childhood education during the 2020-2021 academic year.
Your choice of early childhood education school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. In order to come up with a best overall ranking for early childhood education schools, we combine our degree-level rankings, weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each level.
You may want to choose one of the degree levels below to find the schools of most interest to you.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Early Childhood Education Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
More interested in schools in a specific area of the country? Filter this list by region or state.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
Best Schools for Early Childhood Education in the Great Lakes Region
Although we recommend filtering by degree level first, you can view the list below to see which schools give the educational experience for the child development degree levels they offer. Only those schools that rank in the top 15% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
13 Top Great Lakes Region Schools in Child development
It's difficult to beat University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign if you want to pursue a degree in early childhood education. Located in the small city of Champaign, UIUC is a public university with a very large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #34 out of 2,217 colleges nationwide means UIUC is a great university overall.
There were about 16 early childhood education students who graduated with this degree at UIUC in the most recent data year.
Every student pursuing a degree in early childhood education needs to look into Indiana University - Bloomington. IU Bloomington is a fairly large public university located in the city of Bloomington. A Best Colleges rank of #55 out of 2,217 colleges nationwide means IU Bloomington is a great university overall.
There were roughly 11 early childhood education students who graduated with this degree at IU Bloomington in the most recent year we have data available.
Loyola University Chicago is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a degree in early childhood education. Located in the city of Chicago, Loyola Chicago is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #137 out of 2,217 schools nationwide means Loyola Chicago is a great university overall.
There were approximately 5 early childhood education students who graduated with this degree at Loyola Chicago in the most recent data year.
Purdue University - Main Campus is a wonderful choice for students interested in a degree in early childhood education. Purdue is a very large public university located in the small city of West Lafayette. A Best Colleges rank of #40 out of 2,217 colleges nationwide means Purdue is a great university overall.
There were approximately 23 early childhood education students who graduated with this degree at Purdue in the most recent data year.
Located in the midsize suburb of Normal, Illinois State is a public university with a fairly large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #231 out of 2,217 colleges nationwide means Illinois State is a great university overall.
There were about 94 early childhood education students who graduated with this degree at Illinois State in the most recent year we have data available.
UDayton is a large private not-for-profit university located in the medium-sized city of Dayton. A Best Colleges rank of #184 out of 2,217 colleges nationwide means UDayton is a great university overall.
There were approximately 71 early childhood education students who graduated with this degree at UDayton in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the small city of Muncie, Ball State is a public university with a fairly large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #205 out of 2,217 colleges nationwide means Ball State is a great university overall.
There were approximately 40 early childhood education students who graduated with this degree at Ball State in the most recent data year.
Miami University - Oxford is a large public university located in the town of Oxford. A Best Colleges rank of #116 out of 2,217 colleges nationwide means Miami University - Oxford is a great university overall.
There were roughly 97 early childhood education students who graduated with this degree at Miami University - Oxford in the most recent data year.
Located in the large city of Chicago, DePaul is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #203 out of 2,217 colleges nationwide means DePaul is a great university overall.
There were approximately 37 early childhood education students who graduated with this degree at DePaul in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the midsize city of Peoria, Bradley is a private not-for-profit university with a moderately-sized student population. This university ranks 14th out of 85 schools for overall quality in the state of Illinois.
There were about 13 early childhood education students who graduated with this degree at Bradley in the most recent data year.
UC is a very large public university located in the large city of Cincinnati. A Best Colleges rank of #166 out of 2,217 schools nationwide means UC is a great university overall.
There were approximately 80 early childhood education students who graduated with this degree at UC in the most recent data year.
Located in the city of Chicago, NLU is a private not-for-profit university with a moderately-sized student population. This university ranks 17th out of 85 colleges for overall quality in the state of Illinois.
There were roughly 315 early childhood education students who graduated with this degree at NLU in the most recent data year.
Concordia University, Chicago is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of River Forest. A Best Colleges rank of #170 out of 2,217 schools nationwide means Concordia University, Chicago is a great university overall.
There were approximately 25 early childhood education students who graduated with this degree at Concordia University, Chicago in the most recent data year.
Here are some additional great schools for Early Childhood Education students in the Great Lakes Region that almost earned our Best Early Childhood Education Schools in the Great Lakes 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).
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