a bachelor's degree in special education is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #55 out of 363 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 3 schools in Washington to determine which ones were the best for special education students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 167 bachelor's degrees in special education to qualified students.
Choosing a Great Special Education School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of special education for getting your bachelor'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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
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 ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their bachelor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your bachelor's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
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 - How many other special education students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
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 easy is it for special education to pay back their student loans after receiving their bachelor's degree.
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 Washington ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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 Bachelor’s Students to Study Special Education in Washington
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in special education.
Top Washington Schools for a Bachelor's in Special Ed
It's difficult to beat Western Washington University if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in special education. WWU is a large public university located in the small city of Bellingham.
Bachelor's recipients from the special education program at Western Washington University earn $5,515 above the standard college graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
Gonzaga University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in special education. Located in the medium-sized city of Spokane, Gonzaga is a private not-for-profit university with a moderately-sized student population.More information about a bachelor’s in special education from Gonzaga University
Eastern Washington University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in special education. Located in the town of Cheney, EWU 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 income of $41,883.
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).