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.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 4 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Special Education Bachelor's Degree Schools in Arizona ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 811 bachelor's degrees in special education during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
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 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
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.
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 Bachelor's Degree Schools in Arizona.
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 Arizona
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in special education.
Top Arizona Schools for a Bachelor's in Special Ed
Northern Arizona University is a great choice for students interested in a bachelor's degree in special education. NAU is a very large public university located in the city of Flagstaff.
Those special education students who get their bachelor's degree from Northern Arizona University earn $3,667 more than the standard special ed student.
Grand Canyon University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in special education. Grand Canyon University is a fairly large private for-profit university located in the city of Phoenix.
After graduation, special ed bachelor's recipients generally make an average of $43,258 in their early careers.
Arizona State University - Tempe is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in special education. Located in the medium-sized city of Tempe, ASU - Tempe is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the special education program at Arizona State University - Tempe make $5,939 more than the average graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
University of Arizona is a wonderful decision for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in special education. University of Arizona is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Tucson.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the special ed program report average early career wages of $35,023.
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).