Graduates earn a median $37,568 two years after finishing, more than 46% of bachelor's majors. Measured across 602 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.
It pays around the middle. What you earn will depend more on where you study and what you do with it than on the subject label.
| # | University | 1 yr out | 2 yrs out | 3 yrs out | Graduates/yr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Syracuse University cost & debt at this university → | $47,988 | $57,318 | not published | 29 |
| 2 | Northeastern Illinois University | not published | $52,107 | not published | 26 |
| 3 | Boston University cost & debt at this university → | $46,446 | $50,606 | not published | 7 |
| 4 | Kean University | $49,445 | $49,855 | $51,443 | 8 |
| 5 | Central Washington University cost & debt at this university → | $47,108 | $47,064 | $47,530 | 7 |
| 6 | Towson University cost & debt at this university → | $46,717 | $46,991 | $48,962 | 162 |
| 7 | Southern Connecticut State University cost & debt at this university → | $45,526 | $46,738 | $44,135 | 36 |
| 8 | University of Hawaii at Manoa cost & debt at this university → | $45,781 | $46,673 | $51,908 | 22 |
| 9 | State University of New York at Cortland | $43,864 | $46,087 | $53,247 | 94 |
| 10 | Hood College cost & debt at this university → | $41,433 | $45,980 | $47,940 | 14 |
| 11 | West Chester University of Pennsylvania cost & debt at this university → | $43,057 | $45,867 | $46,610 | 57 |
| 12 | Western Washington University cost & debt at this university → | $49,253 | $45,826 | $49,672 | 102 |
It is the median of what real graduates of this exact major earned, taken from tax records two years after they completed. It is not a starting salary, not an average of job adverts, and not a projection. The median bachelor's major in this dataset reports $37,705, so Special Education sits below the middle by $137.
Two years is early in a career. Fields with long training pipelines — medicine, law, research — look weaker at this point than they will at ten, while trades and applied technical fields peak sooner. Read a low figure in a long-pipeline subject as "slow start", not "bad degree".
There is no debt figure here on purpose. The Department of Education publishes earnings by field of study but not borrowing, so nobody can honestly tell you the debt of a specific major. Debt is published per institution — that is where our university cost pages carry it.
We may earn a commission if you take a loan through a provider here. It never changes the earnings figures on this page — those come from the US Department of Education.
Classified by the Department of Education as Special Education and Teaching (CIP 1310). Source: US Department of Education College Scorecard, field-of-study earnings (median earnings of graduates who received federal financial aid, measured 1–3 years after completion). Figures are per major and credential level, pooled across US programmes. Information only, not financial advice.