Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Film and Photography (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Film and Photography earn a median of $43,765 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $25,957 and $63,381. We rank the 109 U.S. colleges whose Film and Photography programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 9,599 graduates in all. That puts Film and Photography at #124 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank, toward the lower end of the pay scale.
Kennesaw State University, in Georgia, leads at $78,034, 73% above the median ranked school ($44,983). The gap between schools is moderate: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $41,200 and $50,387, and the lowest earns $28,275. 61 of the 109 ranked schools (56%) match or beat the national median.
The top 20 mix sectors: 7 public, 13 private nonprofit and 0 for-profit. California places 7 schools in the top 20, ahead of New York (6).
The top 20 schools cost more than most: a median net price of $33,823 a year, against $22,182 across all 109 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $21,250 in federal loans, about 39% 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 6.4 years.
Showing the top 50 of 109 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | Kennesaw State University Kennesaw, GA Public · 4-year | $78,034 | 28 † | $24,125 | $15,048 | 1.4 |
| 2 | University of California-Berkeley Berkeley, CA Public · 4-year | $70,963 | 42 | $15,000 | $13,481 | 1.6 |
| 3 | Chapman University Orange, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $66,494 | 160 | $18,500 | $46,555 | 6.3 |
| 4 | Rutgers University-New Brunswick New Brunswick, NJ Public · 4-year | $63,679 | 33 † | $23,250 | $24,406 | 3.7 |
| 5 | Loyola Marymount University Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $61,500 | 81 | $22,625 | $48,381 | 7.9 |
| 6 | New York University New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $58,720 | 332 | $20,500 | $37,050 | 6.5 |
| 7 | University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $58,623 | 182 | $19,500 | $32,740 | 6.0 |
| 8 | University of California-Davis Davis, CA Public · 4-year | $57,999 | 57 | $17,500 | $14,741 | 2.8 |
| 9 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI Public · 4-year | $57,059 | 80 | $19,024 | $13,138 | 2.4 |
| 10 | Marymount Manhattan College New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $55,285 | 31 † | $26,851 | $36,861 | 7.5 |
| 11 | Fordham University Bronx, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $54,738 | 44 | $25,000 | $44,338 | 9.3 |
| 12 | Syracuse University Syracuse, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $54,115 | 74 | $26,875 | $38,793 | 8.4 |
| 13 | Brigham Young University Provo, UT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $53,695 | 49 | $11,894 | $15,564 | 4.1 |
| 14 | Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $52,970 | 179 | $27,000 | $34,906 | 8.1 |
| 15 | University of California-Riverside Riverside, CA Public · 4-year | $52,699 | 202 | $20,472 | $14,304 | 3.6 |
| 16 | American University Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $52,661 | 55 | $22,000 | $41,943 | 13.4 |
| 17 | Pace University New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $52,368 | 76 | $25,313 | $30,892 | 7.4 |
| 18 | Quinnipiac University Hamden, CT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $52,094 | 32 † | $22,250 | $40,675 | 11.3 |
| 19 | University of Miami Coral Gables, FL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $52,032 | 39 † | $17,500 | $37,244 | 8.4 |
| 20 | University of California-Irvine Irvine, CA Public · 4-year | $51,423 | 96 | $16,000 | $14,251 | 3.9 |
| 21 | Rhode Island School of Design Providence, RI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $51,278 | 47 | $27,000 | $50,507 | 18.6 |
| 22 | Massachusetts College of Art and Design Boston, MA Public · 4-year | $51,139 | 47 | $24,000 | $24,100 | 9.5 |
| 23 | University of California-Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA Public · 4-year | $50,904 | 34 † | $16,082 | $12,548 | 3.6 |
| 24 | Southern New Hampshire University Manchester, NH Private nonprofit · 4-year | $50,871 | 47 | $20,834 | $36,708 | 16.5 |
| 25 | Montclair State University Montclair, NJ Public · 4-year | $50,790 | 53 | $27,000 | $15,566 | 4.5 |
| 26 | Ohio State University-Main Campus Columbus, OH Public · 4-year | $50,565 | 32 † | $20,687 | $17,339 | 4.8 |
| 27 | University of Oregon Eugene, OR Public · 4-year | $50,499 | 77 | $24,500 | $22,182 | 6.6 |
| 28 | Woodbury University Burbank, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $50,387 | 41 | $26,000 | $33,692 | 10.0 |
| 29 | George Mason University Fairfax, VA Public · 4-year | $50,086 | 62 | $23,205 | $17,915 | 5.3 |
| 30 | Emerson College Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $49,951 | 474 | $23,250 | $49,180 | 22.1 |
| 31 | Art Center College of Design Pasadena, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $49,933 | 64 | $28,750 | $48,661 | 15.0 |
| 32 | University of California-Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA Public · 4-year | $49,893 | 151 | $15,000 | $16,109 | 5.0 |
| 33 | University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT Public · 4-year | $49,841 | 117 | $23,000 | $16,200 | 5.7 |
| 34 | Arizona State University Campus Immersion Tempe, AZ Public · 4-year | $49,759 | 219 | $19,250 | $14,967 | 4.5 |
| 35 | Eastern Michigan University Ypsilanti, MI Public · 4-year | $49,388 | 48 | $27,000 | $15,407 | 4.2 |
| 36 | University of Missouri-Columbia Columbia, MO Public · 4-year | $49,192 | 29 † | $21,500 | $20,268 | 5.6 |
| 37 | The New School New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $48,557 | 76 | $25,000 | $58,741 | 18.3 |
| 38 | University of Iowa Iowa City, IA Public · 4-year | $47,892 | 70 | $24,116 | $22,531 | 8.4 |
| 39 | University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Minneapolis, MN Public · 4-year | $47,707 | 38 † | $19,185 | $16,778 | 6.8 |
| 40 | San Francisco State University San Francisco, CA Public · 4-year | $47,149 | 209 | $17,375 | $12,278 | 4.8 |
| 41 | DePaul University Chicago, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $46,969 | 189 | $24,000 | $30,902 | 11.4 |
| 42 | California State University-Northridge Northridge, CA Public · 4-year | $46,913 | 94 | $18,250 | $7,021 | 2.8 |
| 43 | Pratt Institute-Main Brooklyn, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $46,874 | 58 | $26,596 | $52,659 | 18.9 |
| 44 | CUNY City College New York, NY Public · 4-year | $46,801 | 27 † | — | $3,776 | 1.4 |
| 45 | Academy of Art University San Francisco, CA For-profit · 4-year | $46,726 | 103 | $33,812 | $40,613 | 16.7 |
| 46 | Binghamton University Vestal, NY Public · 4-year | $46,579 | 25 † | — | $21,620 | 8.0 |
| 47 | CUNY Hunter College New York, NY Public · 4-year | $46,545 | 37 † | — | $2,984 | 1.1 |
| 48 | Florida State University Tallahassee, FL Public · 4-year | $46,180 | 31 † | $20,538 | $11,297 | 3.8 |
| 49 | Fairleigh Dickinson University-Metropolitan Campus Teaneck, NJ Private nonprofit · 4-year | $45,958 | 43 | $25,000 | $15,404 | 6.9 |
| 50 | University of California-Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, CA Public · 4-year | $45,815 | 142 | $15,692 | $17,890 | 8.1 |
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 Film and Photography (CIP 5006, 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 109.
- 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 Film and Photography 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Jersey | $50,790 | 3 | Rutgers University-New Brunswick |
| California | $49,913 | 20 | University of California-Berkeley |
| New York | $46,690 | 18 | New York University |
| Michigan | $45,391 | 5 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor |
| Arizona | $44,145 | 3 | Arizona State University Campus Immersion |
| Virginia | $43,025 | 3 | George Mason University |
| Pennsylvania | $42,526 | 5 | Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus |
| Georgia | $42,457 | 3 | Kennesaw State University |
| Ohio | $41,684 | 4 | Ohio State University-Main Campus |
| Florida | $41,673 | 6 | University of Miami |
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