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What are the best colleges for deaf and hard-of-hearing students?

Compare these side by side

The short answer

Gallaudet University and RIT's National Technical Institute for the Deaf are the two institutions built specifically for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. They differ fundamentally: Gallaudet is a bilingual ASL and English university where the entire campus operates in ASL, while NTID is a federally chartered college inside RIT that provides interpreting, real-time captioning and notetaking so students can pursue any RIT major alongside hearing peers. Choose between them on whether you want a fully Deaf-centred environment or full access to a mainstream technical university.

The list

  1. 1

    Rochester Institute of Technology

    Rochester, NY · Private nonprofit · 13,215 undergraduates

    Access infrastructure

    NTID: ~1,100 students, all RIT majors

    The National Technical Institute for the Deaf is a federally chartered college within RIT, providing interpreting, captioning and notetaking across every RIT college. Students can pursue any major — engineering, computing, game design — with full access support. No other technical university matches this infrastructure.

    Acceptance rate
    66.9%
    Average net price
    $34,906
    Median earnings (10 yr)
    $76,571
    6-yr graduation rate
    69.9%
    Median federal debt
    $26,778

Frequently asked questions

It depends on the environment you want. Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. is the world's only university where all programs are designed for deaf and hard-of-hearing students, operating bilingually in ASL and English. RIT's National Technical Institute for the Deaf takes the opposite approach: roughly 1,100 deaf and hard-of-hearing students enrol with full interpreting and captioning support and take classes across RIT's mainstream technical colleges. Neither is better in general; they answer different questions.

NTID is one of RIT's nine colleges and is federally chartered. Students admitted through NTID can enrol in NTID's own associate and bachelor's programs or cross-register into any other RIT college, with interpreting, real-time captioning, notetaking and tutoring provided institutionally rather than requested case by case. This means a deaf student can major in computer science, mechanical engineering or game design alongside hearing classmates with access built in.

Because Gallaudet University is not yet in this site's 22-institution dataset, and it belongs at the top of any complete version of this list. We would rather name the omission than present an incomplete list as comprehensive.

How this list was ordered

Depth of institutional access infrastructure. Only institutions with federally chartered or purpose-built deaf education programs are included, and only one of them is in this dataset so far.

Inclusion criteria

  • Federally chartered or purpose-built programs for deaf and hard-of-hearing students.
  • Interpreting, captioning and notetaking provided institutionally rather than on request.
  • A substantial enrolled population of deaf and hard-of-hearing students.
  • Access support extending across all majors, not a limited subset.
1 schools comparedUpdated September 1, 2026