Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Communication and Media Studies (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Communication and Media Studies earn a median of $56,359 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $39,575 and $76,115. We rank the 479 U.S. colleges whose Communication and Media Studies programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 55,357 graduates in all. That puts Communication and Media Studies at #79 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
University of Pennsylvania, in Pennsylvania, leads at $114,266, 107% above the median ranked school ($55,152). The gap between schools is moderate: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $49,153 and $61,245, and the lowest earns $30,852. 217 of the 479 ranked schools (45%) match or beat the national median.
Private nonprofit colleges dominate the top 20: 16 private nonprofit, 4 public and 0 for-profit. Across all ranked schools, 64% are public. California places 4 schools in the top 20, ahead of Massachusetts (3).
The top 20 schools cost more than most: a median net price of $30,041 a year, against $17,993 across all 479 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $21,000 in federal loans, about 27% of one year of earnings. Measured against a typical high-school graduate in the same state, the median top-20 school recovers its net cost in about 2.9 years.
Showing the top 50 of 479 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $114,266 | 37 † | $15,000 | $28,699 | 1.5 |
| 2 | Northwestern University Evanston, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $93,541 | 67 | $17,687 | $29,167 | 2.0 |
| 3 | Cornell University Ithaca, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $88,463 | 64 | $14,400 | $28,690 | 2.2 |
| 4 | Santa Clara University Santa Clara, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $84,206 | 71 | $17,832 | $50,062 | 4.2 |
| 5 | Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $83,586 | 143 | $18,000 | $41,704 | 3.9 |
| 6 | Villanova University Villanova, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $81,497 | 162 | $26,228 | $43,756 | 3.9 |
| 7 | Boston University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $80,306 | 347 | $23,250 | $24,402 | 2.5 |
| 8 | Northeastern University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $80,191 | 126 | $21,500 | $30,915 | 3.2 |
| 9 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI Public · 4-year | $79,648 | 231 | $19,941 | $13,138 | 1.2 |
| 10 | George Washington University Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $79,112 | 37 † | $25,000 | $36,586 | 3.8 |
| 11 | Fairfield University Fairfield, CT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $78,081 | 91 | $26,919 | $48,095 | 4.8 |
| 12 | Wake Forest University Winston-Salem, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $77,984 | 72 | $22,250 | $28,719 | 2.6 |
| 13 | Fordham University Bronx, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $77,244 | 213 | $24,615 | $44,338 | 4.3 |
| 14 | Tulane University of Louisiana New Orleans, LA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $76,945 | 53 | $23,082 | $39,949 | 3.8 |
| 15 | University of Virginia-Main Campus Charlottesville, VA Public · 4-year | $76,243 | 94 | $20,500 | $21,565 | 2.2 |
| 16 | Roanoke College Salem, VA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $76,198 | 41 | $26,820 | $24,503 | 2.5 |
| 17 | University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $75,864 | 198 | $15,875 | $32,740 | 3.4 |
| 18 | University of California-Berkeley Berkeley, CA Public · 4-year | $75,612 | 208 | $11,100 | $13,481 | 1.4 |
| 19 | California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA Public · 4-year | $75,223 | 44 | $14,857 | $16,665 | 1.7 |
| 20 | Marist University Poughkeepsie, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $74,726 | 294 | $25,000 | $41,544 | 4.3 |
| 21 | Manhattan University Riverdale, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $74,471 | 93 | $25,500 | $27,256 | 2.8 |
| 22 | University of Maryland-College Park College Park, MD Public · 4-year | $74,402 | 265 | $17,250 | $15,678 | 1.7 |
| 23 | Elon University Elon, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $73,750 | 169 | $21,999 | $41,555 | 4.2 |
| 24 | Hobart William Smith Colleges Geneva, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $73,650 | 61 | $26,500 | $31,563 | 3.3 |
| 25 | Gonzaga University Spokane, WA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $73,558 | 27 † | $21,875 | $35,119 | 4.3 |
| 26 | Chapman University Orange, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $73,461 | 65 | $18,777 | $46,555 | 5.1 |
| 27 | The Catholic University of America Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $73,073 | 30 † | $27,000 | $29,561 | 3.6 |
| 28 | University of California-Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA Public · 4-year | $72,976 | 419 | $13,000 | $16,109 | 1.8 |
| 29 | St Lawrence University Canton, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $72,839 | 45 | $25,000 | $28,651 | 3.1 |
| 30 | University of California-Davis Davis, CA Public · 4-year | $72,778 | 309 | $13,000 | $14,741 | 1.6 |
| 31 | University of Arizona Tucson, AZ Public · 4-year | $72,758 | 238 | $18,910 | $16,674 | 1.8 |
| 32 | The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX Public · 4-year | $72,210 | 158 | $19,500 | $19,857 | 2.1 |
| 33 | Loyola University Maryland Baltimore, MD Private nonprofit · 4-year | $71,948 | 122 | $27,000 | $30,574 | 3.6 |
| 34 | Simmons University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $71,138 | 29 † | $23,250 | $25,265 | 3.4 |
| 35 | Stonehill College Easton, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $70,618 | 46 | $25,000 | $33,016 | 4.5 |
| 36 | Roger Williams University Bristol, RI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $70,575 | 62 | $26,000 | $37,999 | 5.0 |
| 37 | University of Delaware Newark, DE Public · 4-year | $70,414 | 197 | $24,296 | $17,799 | 2.1 |
| 38 | Willamette University Salem, OR Private nonprofit · 4-year | $70,412 | 30 † | $21,500 | $25,121 | 3.0 |
| 39 | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, NC Public · 4-year | $70,240 | 628 | $14,625 | $11,655 | 1.3 |
| 40 | Syracuse University Syracuse, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $70,106 | 115 | $26,000 | $38,793 | 4.5 |
| 41 | CUNY City College New York, NY Public · 4-year | $69,948 | 109 | $14,858 | $3,776 | 0.4 |
| 42 | Pace University New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $69,876 | 186 | $26,000 | $30,892 | 3.6 |
| 43 | Rutgers University-New Brunswick New Brunswick, NJ Public · 4-year | $69,709 | 408 | $21,500 | $24,406 | 3.0 |
| 44 | University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus Pittsburgh, PA Public · 4-year | $69,573 | 68 | $25,870 | $30,434 | 3.7 |
| 45 | Gustavus Adolphus College Saint Peter, MN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $69,423 | 49 | $27,000 | $22,900 | 2.9 |
| 46 | Saint Anselm College Manchester, NH Private nonprofit · 4-year | $69,288 | 39 † | $27,000 | $34,779 | 5.1 |
| 47 | DePauw University Greencastle, IN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $69,228 | 73 | $27,000 | $22,264 | 2.7 |
| 48 | Loyola Marymount University Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $69,144 | 157 | $17,750 | $48,381 | 6.0 |
| 49 | University of New Hampshire-Main Campus Durham, NH Public · 4-year | $69,098 | 283 | $25,990 | $23,805 | 3.5 |
| 50 | Southern Illinois University-Carbondale Carbondale, IL Public · 4-year | $69,034 | 25 † | $26,000 | $13,297 | 1.6 |
How this ranking is built
A school appears here only if it meets every condition below.
- Which programs count
- Main campuses only, one entry per institution. Scorecard reports program outcomes for the whole six-digit federal ID (OPEID6), so branch campuses share their parent’s numbers and are not listed twice.
- Only bachelor's degree programs in Communication and Media Studies (CIP 0901, the four-digit code Scorecard uses to group related programs).
- At least 25 graduates in the earnings sample. Smaller samples are left out because their medians swing too much and the counts carry a little privacy noise.
- A major gets a page only when at least 20 schools qualify. This one has 479.
- Ranked by median earnings 4 years after completing, highest first. Ties go to the larger sample, then to the school name.
- Schools missing earnings or a sample size are left out rather than estimated.
- What the numbers mean
- Earnings: median annual earnings of graduates four years after completing. The cohort completed in academic years 2017-18 and 2018-19 and was measured in calendar years 2022 and 2023, in 2024 dollars.
- Who is counted: graduates who received federal student aid (Title IV grants or loans), and only those who were working and not enrolled in more school that year. Graduates without federal aid, those who went on to further study and those with no earnings are not in the median.
- Scorecard adds privacy noise to counts and medians and hides values it cannot protect, so a gap of a few percent between two schools is not meaningful.
- Graduates: the number of graduates in that earnings sample. A † marks fewer than 40, where the figure is less precise.
- Debt: median federal loan debt (Stafford and Grad PLUS loans disbursed at that school) of graduates who borrowed, from the 2018-19 and 2019-20 completers. Parent PLUS and private loans are not included.
- Net price: average yearly cost after grants and scholarships for the whole institution, not this major, academic year 2023-24.
- Payback: 4 years of net price divided by how much these earnings exceed a high-school graduate’s in the school’s state. Shown only when that gap is at least $2,000, the same formula as the rest of the site.
- Source: U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard field-of-study data, June 2026 release.
Top states for Communication and Media Studies earnings
Median of the school medians for states with at least 3 ranked schools. The best school in each state is shown.
| State | Median earnings | Ranked schools | Top school |
|---|---|---|---|
| District of Columbia | $73,073 | 3 | George Washington University |
| New Hampshire | $66,547 | 4 | Saint Anselm College |
| Rhode Island | $64,520 | 5 | Roger Williams University |
| Maryland | $63,292 | 9 | University of Maryland-College Park |
| Colorado | $61,434 | 9 | University of Colorado Boulder |
| California | $61,136 | 36 | Santa Clara University |
| Utah | $59,969 | 5 | University of Utah |
| Washington | $59,752 | 10 | Gonzaga University |
| Arizona | $59,358 | 6 | University of Arizona |
| Massachusetts | $59,202 | 19 | Boston College |
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