Early Childhood Education (B.S.)

By studying early childhood education, you’ll learn how to nurture and educate young minds during their most critical developmental stages. We’ll prepare you to obtain your state of Illinois professional educator license in early childhood education. Our alumni become teachers, child care administrators, family services workers, and resource and referral specialists. The average mid-career salary for graduates of this program is $60,135 (Steppingblocks, 2023).

Our experiential and research-informed program will provide you more than 500 hours of direct experience and prepares you to:

• Teach children from birth through second grade in Illinois public schools
• Teach children with disabilities ages 3-6 with our early childhood special education approval
• Teach children with diverse language backgrounds with our English as a second language (ESL) approval.

Our program is approved by:

• Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE)
• National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
• Gateways to Opportunity

See 2+2 early childhood education transfer planning guide