15 Colleges for Studying Special Education in States with Teacher Shortages

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Grand Canyon University

Featured Program: B.S. in Elementary Education / Special Education and M.Ed. in Special Education

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Purdue University

Featured Program: Online MSEd in Special Education

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Arizona State University

Featured Program: Special Education, MEd

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George Mason University

Featured Program: Master's and Graduate Certificate Programs in Special Education

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Liberty University

Featured Program: (B.Ed.) in Special Education, M.A.T. in Special Education, and Doctoral Curriculum and Instruction – Special Education

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Arcadia University

Featured Program: Online Graduate Certificate in Autism

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Regis University

Featured Program: Earn your M.Ed in Special Education Licensure, MAE in Culturally & Linguistically Diverse Education and more at Regis University. Build your skills to teach students with the greatest needs.

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As of the 2013-2014 academic year, 47 U.S. states have declared a shortage of qualified special-education teachers in their K-12 public schools. The demand for well-prepared teachers in various fields of special education shows no sign of decreasing. One of the best ways for candidates to get the position they seek is to attend an accredited special-education teacher preparation program in a geographic area that has a shortage. Ideally, the program will include fieldwork, observations, training, and sometimes even paid classroom time in the local schools, providing a potential pathway to a full-time special-education teaching position.

Our Methodology

To find these select institutions for special educators, we consulted the list of states included on the 2013-2014 Teacher Shortage Areas Nationwide Listing compiled by the U.S. Department of Education, then correlated this information with the statistics reported by the National Center for Education Statistics and its Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.

Note that this list includes only the 15 states experiencing the most extreme special-educator shortages, and the top producer of special education teaching program graduates in each state.

Trends in Shortage States and Special Education Degrees

States with large urban areas, such as New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Michigan, appear on this list because their colleges attract more students in the field of special education and because they have multiple large school districts. Teacher turnover is higher at many urban school districts, so more opportunities arise for recent college graduates with degrees and training in special education.

However, our list also features institutions from the less densely populated geographic regions of the Midwest (including Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana) and the South, with North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky represented.

Although California, Washington, and Oregon all reported shortages in 2013-2014, no West Coast institutions appear on our list. These states report shortages in only one to two areas of special education, while Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin have indicated teacher shortages in four or more areas and often across grade levels.

Wisconsin stands out for having had special-educator shortages in eight disciplines for every year from 2004 through 2014. These areas are cognitive disabilities, cross-categorical, deaf and hard of hearing, early childhood special education, emotional/behavioral disorders, learning disabilities, speech and language disabilities, and visual disabilities. Michigan is also significant in that it shows shortages in all categories of special education for the 2013-2014 academic year.

While nearly every shortage state reports a need for general special educators, certain areas of specialization dominate across the board. Almost every one of the states represented on our list indicated a need for qualified educators in the fields of early childhood special education, teaching children with speech and language disabilities, and teaching children with visual disabilities.

Top Schools Fighting the Shortage