Education & Social
What you can do with Special Education
Teaching students with disabilities and adapting instruction to how each one learns.
- Careers
- 3
- Early career
- $46,000
- Mid-career
- $56,000
- Growing fast
- 0 of 3
How these numbers work: A major does not have its own salary. Early and mid-career pay is what people who hold this degree earn at the start of their careers and midway through them. Career pay comes from the 3 careers a Special Education degree commonly leads to, and counts everyone in those jobs, including people who have been doing them for thirty years. The two answer different questions, which is why they do not match.
61% of people with this degree go on to a graduate degree, so the higher-paying careers below usually mean more school after the bachelor's.
0 of 3 careers this degree leads to are projected to grow faster than average from 2024 to 2034.
Set on Special Education?
Save it as your major and PlanexAI will shape your dashboard, career matches, and study plan around it.
3 careers this degree leads to
Instructional Coordinator
$77,440Shape what gets taught and how: develop curricula, coach teachers, and bring new instructional technology into classrooms.
- Middle half of workers
- $60,780 to $98,820
- Growth
- Slower than average
- Openings a year
- 21,900
Work-life54Remote68- Curriculum Design
- Teacher Coaching
- Learning Strategies
- Program Evaluation
Special Education Teacher
$65,120Teach academic, social, and life skills to elementary students with learning, emotional, or physical disabilities.
- Middle half of workers
- $59,770 to $83,980
- Growth
- Declining
- Openings a year
- 15,400
Work-life59Remote5- IEP Development
- Differentiated Instruction
- Learning Strategies
- Patience
Preschool Teacher
$38,140Guide the youngest learners through the social, physical, and early academic growth that sets up everything after.
- Middle half of workers
- $34,530 to $47,550
- Growth
- About average
- Openings a year
- 65,500
Work-life76Remote52- Early Childhood Instruction
- Learning Strategies
- Classroom Management
- Patience
Related majors
Set on Special Education?
Save it as your major and PlanexAI will shape your dashboard, career matches, and study plan around it.
Where these pay figures come from
Early and mid-career pay is the median annual wage of full-time workers who hold a bachelor's degree in that major, ages 22 to 27 and ages 35 to 45, from 2024 data. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (IPUMS). Published as Outcomes by Major by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Career pay is the annual wage of everyone working in that occupation, not only recent graduates, so it includes people who have done the job for decades. The middle half is the 25th to the 75th percentile. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and O*NET OnLine (median and percentile annual wages May 2025; employment projections 2024-2034).
All figures are national. What you earn depends on where you work, who you work for, and how far you take the degree.