Minneapolis City Guide
ABA Programs in Minneapolis
The Twin Cities lost their campus-based ABA master's when the University of Minnesota discontinued its emphasis, which changes the answer to almost every question a prospective student asks here. This guide covers what actually remains, Minnesota's new 2024 licensing requirement, and the most compressed pay distribution of any metro on this site.
Key Takeaways
- 01The University of Minnesota's ABA emphasis is discontinued. Its own program page states the emphasis "has been discontinued and is no longer accepting applications". Directory sites still list it; do not apply on the strength of one.
- 02What remains in the metro is Capella University's online M.S., headquartered in Minneapolis, at $540 per credit across 60 quarter credits.
- 03The nearest campus program is St. Cloud State, about 65 miles northwest, which is ABAI-accredited at master's level and charges a flat $770 per credit to residents and non-residents alike.
- 04Minnesota licenses behavior analysts through the Board of Psychology and has only done so since 2024, which makes it one of the newest licensing regimes in the country. Expect the guidance to still be settling.
- 05This metro has the flattest pay curve of any on this site: a 10th percentile of $46,020 and a 90th of $79,080, a spread of just $33,060 where the median metro here spreads more than $50,000. The floor is high and the ceiling is low.
Anyone researching ABA programs in Minneapolis runs into the same stale result: the University of Minnesota's Master of Arts in Special Education with an emphasis in Applied Behavior Analysis. It was a real program, it was ABAI-verified for students who enrolled before 2024-2025, and the department's own page now states that the emphasis "has been discontinued and is no longer accepting applications". Third-party directories have not caught up. That single correction is the most useful thing this page can give you.
What remains inside the metro is Capella University, headquartered in Minneapolis and delivering a fully online M.S. in Applied Behavior Analysis at $540 per credit across 60 quarter credits. The nearest campus option is St. Cloud State University, about 65 miles up I-94, and it is the stronger credential: ABAI-accredited at master's level, available on campus or online, at a flat $770 per credit regardless of residency.
Minnesota is also a very new licensing state. Behavior analysts came under the Minnesota Board of Psychology in 2024, which means the state's rules are newer than most readers' assumptions about them. And the metro has a pay structure unlike anywhere else in this guide — the highest tenth percentile outside the West Coast paired with the lowest ninetieth of any large metro, which produces a market where the floor is generous and the ceiling arrives early.
Metro scope
Includes: Minneapolis, St. Paul, Bloomington, Brooklyn Park, Plymouth, Eagan, Maple Grove, Woodbury. The Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington metro, covering the two central cities and the sixteen-county area around them — the western suburbs through Plymouth and Maple Grove, the southern ring through Bloomington and Eagan, and the eastern suburbs into Woodbury and across the Wisconsin line.
Note: The metro crosses into Wisconsin at Hudson and River Falls, and both states license behavior analysts, so a caseload that crosses the St. Croix needs two credentials. Minnesota licenses behavior analysts through the Minnesota Board of Psychology, and has only done so since 2024 — one of the newest licensing regimes in the country. Wisconsin has licensed since 2010 through its Department of Safety and Professional Services. Because Minnesota's requirement is so recent, practitioners who qualified before it took effect are working through a first-time application rather than a renewal, and the guidance is still settling. Check the board directly rather than relying on a third-party summary written before 2024.
The programs
Every one of the BCBA programs in the Twin Cities and within reach
2 programs
St. Cloud State University — M.S. in Applied Behavior Analysis
St. Cloud, about 65 miles northwest on I-94 · St. Cloud, MN · On-campus or online; a long drive from the Twin Cities, which the online option solves
- Tuition
- $770 per credit hour, the same rate for residents and non-residents
- Length
- 45 to 52 credits, 2 years
- Format
- On-campus with online options
- Accreditation
- ABAI-accredited at master's level; St. Cloud State Department of Community Psychology, Counseling and Family Therapy
- Part-time
- Online delivery makes it workable from the Twin Cities without relocating
- Minnesota's only ABAI-accredited ABA master's, and the strongest credential available to a Twin Cities student
- A flat $770 per credit for residents and non-residents alike, so out-of-state students pay the Minnesota rate
- Online delivery means the 65-mile distance does not have to decide the question
- The state's longest-running active behavior-analytic master's, and the one the profession in Minnesota is largely trained by
- At 45 to 52 credits it is a substantial program; confirm which end of that range your track sits at
Capella University — M.S. in Applied Behavior Analysis
Minneapolis headquarters; delivered online · Minneapolis, MN · No commute; online delivery
- Tuition
- $540 per credit hour
- Length
- 60 quarter credits — ten core courses plus two specialization courses — in 2 to 3 years
- Format
- Fully online
- Accreditation
- BCBA Pathway 2 coursework; Capella University
- Part-time
- Built for working professionals, with flexible pacing
- A Minneapolis-headquartered institution, so advising and faculty sit inside the Minnesota licensing and provider context
- $540 per credit is the lowest published rate available to a Twin Cities student
- Note the unit: these are 60 QUARTER credits, not semester credits, so compare whole-program totals rather than per-credit rates against a semester program
- Fully online and nationally accessible, which is why Capella is one of the highest-volume ABA degree producers in the country
- Not ABAI-accredited — St. Cloud State is the accredited option in this state
Cost of living
What it costs to live in the Twin Cities while you study
The Twin Cities are a moderately expensive Midwestern metro: the whole basket runs 4.8% above the national average and housing 11.8% above. Neither figure is alarming, and both are far below the coastal markets. What the metro gives you that most of its cost peers do not is a genuinely usable transit system on the core corridors, and what it takes back is winter — a real factor when your caseload involves driving between client homes five months of the year.
Housing, 2024
111.8
11.8% above the national average
Everything, 2024
104.8
4.8% above the national average
Metro median pay covers
$57,987
of national-average spending
Housing runs 11.8% above the national average, which is the single biggest reason the overall cost of living lands where it does.
Both figures are BEA Regional Price Parities for Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI, 2024, where the national average is 100. Housing is the services-housing component; the second figure is the whole basket.
Housing price level
11.8% above the national average
BEA Regional Price Parity for housing, 2024
All-items price level
4.8% above the national average
BEA Regional Price Parity, all items, 2024
Transit
Metro Transit light rail and bus
Blue and Green lines connect Minneapolis, St. Paul, the airport and the Mall of America
Car
Required for fieldwork
A sixteen-county metro, and winter driving is a genuine scheduling constraint
Cross-border commute
Hudson and River Falls, WI
Inside the commuting metro but a separate Wisconsin license
Tuition, St. Cloud State M.S. (all students)
$770 per credit hour
Flat rate for residents and non-residents; 45 to 52 credits
Tuition, Capella M.S.
$540 per credit hour
60 quarter credits — a different unit from a semester credit
Clinical fieldwork
BCBA certification in Minneapolis: where Twin Cities students do supervised fieldwork
Even without a campus-based master's, the Twin Cities have serious fieldwork infrastructure. The University of Minnesota's Institute on Community Integration is the state's federally designated UCEDD and one of the oldest and largest in the country, and it runs MNLEND alongside it. Add two children's hospital systems and one of the largest autism nonprofits in the Midwest, and the placement market is deeper than the program market.
Institute on Community Integration
ICI at the University of Minnesota is Minnesota's University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities, and among the largest in the national network. It runs the MNLEND interdisciplinary fellowship from the same campus.
Children's Minnesota
Children's Minnesota operates hospitals in Minneapolis and St. Paul and is one of the largest freestanding pediatric health systems in the United States.
Fraser
Fraser is Minnesota's largest and oldest provider of autism and early childhood mental health services, running clinics and centers across the metro and employing behavior analysts at scale.
Twin Cities school districts
Minneapolis Public Schools, St. Paul Public Schools and the large suburban districts — Anoka-Hennepin, Osseo, Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan — host school-based placements.
Gillette Children's
Gillette Children's in St. Paul specializes in complex neurological and developmental conditions, which gives it a caseload profile distinct from a general pediatric hospital.
Hiring market
Major ABA employers across the Twin Cities
Minnesota funds autism services through a Medicaid benefit with an unusually structured provider framework, and the result is a market where large, established nonprofits hold a bigger share than in most states. Fraser, Children's Minnesota and Gillette between them employ a substantial part of the metro's behavior analysts, and that concentration is a plausible explanation for the metro's compressed pay distribution: large institutional employers with salary bands produce fewer outliers at both ends.
Institute on Community Integration
University center for developmental disabilities
Minnesota's UCEDD at the University of Minnesota, and the host of the MNLEND fellowship. A training destination and an employer for research and policy-facing work.
Fraser
Nonprofit autism and mental health provider
Minnesota's largest provider of autism services, running clinics across the metro and one of the biggest single employers of behavior analysts in the state.
Children's Minnesota
Pediatric health system
One of the largest freestanding pediatric systems in the country, with hospitals in Minneapolis and St. Paul and developmental and behavioral services across both.
Gillette Children's
Specialty pediatric hospital
A St. Paul hospital specializing in complex neurological, developmental and musculoskeletal conditions, with a caseload unlike a general pediatric service.
Minneapolis Public Schools
Public school district
The metro's largest urban district, employing behavior specialists across special education services, with a school calendar and Minnesota public pension membership.
Metro pay
BCBA salary in the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington metro
Metro median
$60,770
National median
$59,350
10th percentile
$46,020
90th percentile
$79,080
BLS metro median, May 2025
$60,770
$1,420 above the national median
Cost of living, 2024
104.8
4.8% above the national average
Worth nationally
$57,987
the same pay in national-average dollars
Because prices run 4.8% above the national average, $60,770 here goes about as far as $57,987 would nationally.
BLS does not publish a separate occupation for behavior analysts. This is the May 2025 median for SOC 21-1018 (Substance Abuse, Behavioral Disorder, and Mental Health Counselors), the category BCBAs are counted in, which also contains counseling roles that typically pay less. Read it as a floor for the metro, not as BCBA pay. Wages: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI. Cost of living is the BEA Regional Price Parity for the metro, all items, 2024, where the national average is 100. It is the most recent year BEA publishes, so it sits one year behind the wage figure. Prices: BEA Regional Price Parities.
The published figure for this metro is $60,770, the BLS OEWS May 2025 median for SOC 21-1018, Substance Abuse, Behavioral Disorder, and Mental Health Counselors, across the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington metro. That is $1,420 above the national median of $59,350 for the same code. BLS publishes no separate occupation for behavior analysts, and SOC 21-1018 also contains counseling roles requiring neither a master's nor board certification, so read $60,770 as a floor rather than as BCBA pay.
The distribution is what makes this metro unusual, and it runs in the opposite direction from most. The 10th percentile is $46,020 — the eighth-highest floor of the fifty metros on this site, above Boston and Los Angeles — while the 90th percentile is $79,080, among the lowest. The spread between them is $33,060, the narrowest of any metro here, where the typical metro in this guide spreads more than $50,000.
That shape has a straightforward practical meaning. Early-career pay in the Twin Cities is better than almost anywhere in the Midwest; senior pay is not. A metro dominated by large institutional employers with published salary bands — two children's hospital systems, a very large autism nonprofit, well-unionized school districts — produces exactly this curve. Adjust for cost, where prices run 4.8% above the national average, and the median is worth about $57,987 nationally. For national context see our BCBA salary guide.
Other cities
Other cities in Minnesota
Minneapolis is currently the only Minnesota metro with its own guide. The state guide carries every program in Minnesota plus the licensure picture.
Nearby metros
If you are flexible on metro
The Upper Midwest alternatives are all a similar distance and a similar cost, and each changes one variable: Milwaukee brings a different licensing regime, Chicago brings depth of programs, and Grand Rapids brings a higher metro median than either.
ABA Programs in Milwaukee
Five hours east, licensed since 2010, and paying a higher metro median with a higher floor than the Twin Cities.
ABA Programs in Chicago
The Midwest's deepest program market, including an ABAI-accredited master's, and a $114,770 top decile.
ABA Programs in Minnesota
The full state picture: every Minnesota program, the 2024 licensing requirement, and what happened to the University of Minnesota emphasis.
Common questions
Frequently Asked Questions
01How many ABA programs are in Minneapolis?+
02Is the University of Minnesota ABA program still running?+
03Do I need a license to practice ABA in Minneapolis?+
04How much do BCBAs make in Minneapolis?+
05Why is Twin Cities pay so compressed?+
06Where do Twin Cities ABA students do supervised fieldwork?+
Sources
- Capella University, M.S. in Applied Behavior Analysis
- St. Cloud State University, M.S. in Applied Behavior Analysis
- University of Minnesota, Special Education M.A. with an emphasis in Applied Behavior Analysis (discontinued)
- Institute on Community Integration, University of Minnesota (UCEDD/LEND)
- BACB, U.S. Licensure of Behavior Analysts by State
- BLS OEWS May 2025, Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington MSA (SOC 21-1018)
- Minnesota Board of Psychology
- ABAI Accredited Programs Directory