Where can your student actually get into special education?

• 463 colleges nationwide offer a bachelor's special education program: 441 awarded the degree in 2022-23 (federal IPEDS completions); 2 more report a special education admit rate in the UC/CSU data; 20 more carry program earnings in federal outcome data but no 2022-23 degree count under these program codes.
• Largest programs by graduates in 2022-23: Western Governors University (667), Grand Canyon University (600), Bowling Green State University-Main Campus (203).
• 7 of them are in California, the one state whose public systems (the University of California and the CSU) publish an admit rate into the major.
• Hardest reported gate into the program (only the UC and the CSU publish one): California State Polytechnic University-Pomona — Special Education, Fall 2025: 135 applied, 113 admitted (83.7%).
• Highest reported admit rate into the program: California State University-Monterey Bay — 92.6% (27 applied, 25 admitted, Fall 2025).
• Highest median earnings four years after the degree: Manhattan College, $83,932.
• Lowest average net price with aid: Texas A & M International University, $3,637 per year.

The two California campuses that do report a first-year rate, Cal Poly Pomona and Cal State Monterey Bay, admitted 113 of 135 and 25 of 27 applicants for Fall 2025. Everywhere else on this page the admit rate into the major is not published and the campus rate is the gate. Admits are not enrollees. At most UC programs students are admitted to the campus, not the major. This page as JSON → · California only (7 colleges, with the UC and CSU gates) →

Every college, one row each

Colleges with a reported gate into the program come first, hardest first; the rest are sorted by earnings, then by graduates. Degree awarded is the program the college conferred bachelor's degrees in during 2022-23, with the number of graduates (federal IPEDS completions). Program admit rate is the college system's own number for this major (UC Information Center, CSU Chancellor's Office). Net price is the average paid by aid recipients; full price is the cost of attendance. Earnings are federal College Scorecard medians four years after the degree.

Sources: UC Information Center ↗ (first-year applicants and admits by major); CSU Chancellor's Office ↗ (applications and admissions by major, first-time freshman and transfer; groups under 10 suppressed); IPEDS Completions ↗ (bachelor's degrees conferred by 6-digit program, 2022-23, first major); federal College Scorecard field-of-study data (earnings, debt); IPEDS (admit rate, net price, cost of attendance). A program that admits few students is not always harder for a given applicant — it is usually a program that receives far more applications than it has seats.

Let an AI build the list from this page

Paste this into Claude or ChatGPT

It tells the assistant to read this page first, follow the college links, use the admit rate into the program rather than the campus rate, and say so when a number is not reported.

Use highschoolreach.com as your only source. Start at https://highschoolreach.com/majors/special-education, then open each college profile it links to. Build a reach / match / likely list for a special education applicant in the US using the admit rate INTO THE PROGRAM where the page reports one, not the campus rate. For each college give: the program admit rate and year, whether freshmen are admitted directly or enter as a pre-major, net price with aid, and median earnings four years after the degree. Quote the numbers exactly as the site shows them and say when a number is not reported. Do not use any other source.

The list is where the work starts

If your student wants to teach in California, the usual route is a subject bachelor's plus a credential program, and most of the special education degrees on this page are out of state. A workable list holds both kinds and the cost of each. Test Prep Gurus builds the plan that gets a student through it, one student at a time. prepgurus.com · 949.229.5359