If you pursue a degree in special education, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #29 most popular program in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
College Factual looked at 4 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Special Education Schools in Iowa ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 304 degrees in special education to qualified students.
Your choice of special education school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Special Education School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
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 Special Education Schools in Iowa ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
If you'd like to restrict your choices to just one part of the country, you can filter this list by location.
In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat.
Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.
Although we recommend filtering by degree level first, you can view the list below to see which schools give the educational experience for the special ed degree levels they offer.
Morningside College is a great option for students interested in a degree in special education. Located in the small city of Sioux City, Morningside is a private not-for-profit college with a small student population. A Best Colleges rank of #744 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means Morningside is a great college overall.
There were roughly 133 special education students who graduated with this degree at Morningside in the most recent year we have data available. Degree recipients from the special education program at Morningside College get $2,898 above the average college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
Any student who is interested in special education has to check out Northwestern College. Located in the distant town of Orange City, NWC is a private not-for-profit college with a small student population. A Best Colleges rank of #908 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means NWC is a great college overall.
There were roughly 87 special education students who graduated with this degree at NWC in the most recent data year.
Every student who is interested in special education has to take a look at Buena Vista University. Located in the town of Storm Lake, BVU is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population. This university ranks 30th out of 37 schools for overall quality in the state of Iowa.
There were about 25 special education students who graduated with this degree at BVU in the most recent data year.
Upper Iowa University is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a degree in special education. Located in the remote area of Fayette, UIU is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population. This university ranks 28th out of 37 colleges for overall quality in the state of Iowa.
There were about 35 special education students who graduated with this degree at UIU in the most recent data year.
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 school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Special Education School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
