First of all, you shouldn’t go into teaching, and especially not into Special Education, in order to earn a higher salary. Your motivation should be for the reward of helping young people learn. Working with kids, and especially with people who have special needs, takes A LOT of patience. You will not be happy in your job if you heart isn’t in it. And if you don’t genuinely care about the kids, they will be able to tell, and your job will become even more miserable. One of my closest friends has his Master’s in English, and he teaches in an inner-city High School. Because of this location, the salaries run a bit higher than the cushier suburbs. That school district is also in a different Union than most of the teachers around the state. When he first went to that school, he experienced a culture shock. I was working in a hospital in another part of the city at that time, and I could relate well. Those kids have a tougher life than most of us could imagine, so academics mean little or nothing to them, and they are tough as nails. But he really is inspired by the handful of kids who genuinely take an interest and are motivated to keep moving ahead. To the best of my knowledge, beyond Special Education or Inner-City settings, I always had the impression that a Master’s Degree earned the same (commensurate with years of experience) regardless of the subject matter. The best source of this information would be the teacher’s Union where you hope to work. Again, I implore you to choose a career based on how much you will LOVE what you do, not on how much you will earn. I am speaking from experience and personal observations – I got my MA at 17 years ago. I dropped out of undergrad for a couple years and worked in clerical positions for a while. I realized that I would be miserable to have that for a long-term career, so I forced myself to go back to school, even though I couldn’t afford it and had no clue what I wanted to do. I took required courses, and for electives I took whatever seemed interesting to me, and that ultimately led me to my current career, which I love.