Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Public Relations and Advertising (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Public Relations and Advertising earn a median of $63,560 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $45,857 and $83,689. We rank the 141 U.S. colleges whose Public Relations and Advertising programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 16,091 graduates in all. That puts Public Relations and Advertising at #53 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
Syracuse University, in New York, leads at $90,535, 45% above the median ranked school ($62,530). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $56,032 and $68,029, and the lowest earns $41,158, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 63 of the 141 ranked schools (45%) match or beat the national median.
Private nonprofit colleges dominate the top 20: 14 private nonprofit, 6 public and 0 for-profit. Across all ranked schools, 55% are public. California places 4 schools in the top 20, ahead of District of Columbia (2).
The top 20 schools cost more than most: a median net price of $32,808 a year, against $19,680 across all 141 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $23,250 in federal loans, about 29% 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 3.1 years.
Showing the top 50 of 141 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | Syracuse University Syracuse, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $90,535 | 233 | $24,375 | $38,793 | 2.8 |
| 2 | Southern Methodist University Dallas, TX Private nonprofit · 4-year | $89,330 | 37 † | $19,500 | $40,892 | 3.0 |
| 3 | University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $87,946 | 83 | $19,500 | $32,740 | 2.6 |
| 4 | George Washington University Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $85,459 | 46 | $23,250 | $36,586 | 3.2 |
| 5 | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL Public · 4-year | $83,451 | 200 | $21,875 | $14,355 | 1.2 |
| 6 | University of Miami Coral Gables, FL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $82,999 | 95 | $17,000 | $37,244 | 3.1 |
| 7 | Pepperdine University Malibu, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $81,417 | 96 | $24,112 | $58,098 | 5.2 |
| 8 | University of San Francisco San Francisco, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $81,285 | 36 † | $24,000 | $41,431 | 3.7 |
| 9 | Brigham Young University Provo, UT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $80,841 | 98 | $11,974 | $15,564 | 1.5 |
| 10 | The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX Public · 4-year | $80,221 | 366 | $20,402 | $19,857 | 1.7 |
| 11 | Chapman University Orange, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $80,139 | 69 | $22,250 | $46,555 | 4.3 |
| 12 | Miami University-Oxford Oxford, OH Public · 4-year | $79,710 | 205 | $23,500 | $28,384 | 2.6 |
| 13 | Pace University New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $79,376 | 131 | $24,525 | $30,892 | 2.8 |
| 14 | American University Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $78,410 | 130 | $26,442 | $41,943 | 4.4 |
| 15 | Endicott College Beverly, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $77,253 | 26 † | $24,000 | $40,654 | 4.5 |
| 16 | Johnson & Wales University-Providence Providence, RI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $77,025 | 42 | $24,500 | $31,027 | 3.4 |
| 17 | Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus University Park, PA Public · 4-year | $76,246 | 306 | $23,250 | $32,875 | 3.3 |
| 18 | University of Oklahoma-Norman Campus Norman, OK Public · 4-year | $76,148 | 49 | $20,718 | $15,300 | 1.5 |
| 19 | Assumption University Worcester, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $74,900 | 49 | $27,000 | $29,498 | 3.5 |
| 20 | University of Colorado Boulder Boulder, CO Public · 4-year | $74,779 | 176 | $18,500 | $25,346 | 3.0 |
| 21 | University of Georgia Athens, GA Public · 4-year | $74,531 | 238 | $18,750 | $13,936 | 1.4 |
| 22 | Quinnipiac University Hamden, CT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $73,547 | 77 | $23,250 | $40,675 | 4.5 |
| 23 | University of Oregon Eugene, OR Public · 4-year | $73,410 | 456 | $20,500 | $22,182 | 2.4 |
| 24 | University of Rhode Island Kingston, RI Public · 4-year | $72,328 | 130 | $22,214 | $21,440 | 2.7 |
| 25 | Indiana Wesleyan University-Marion Marion, IN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $71,669 | 33 † | $26,563 | $22,866 | 2.6 |
| 26 | Texas Christian University Fort Worth, TX Private nonprofit · 4-year | $71,186 | 87 | $23,668 | $36,660 | 4.0 |
| 27 | DePaul University Chicago, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $71,045 | 378 | $22,332 | $30,902 | 3.5 |
| 28 | Seton Hall University South Orange, NJ Private nonprofit · 4-year | $70,802 | 30 † | $18,969 | $31,446 | 3.7 |
| 29 | Bowling Green State University-Main Campus Bowling Green, OH Public · 4-year | $70,583 | 28 † | $22,519 | $24,022 | 2.8 |
| 30 | Gonzaga University Spokane, WA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $69,977 | 38 † | $26,000 | $35,119 | 4.8 |
| 31 | Fashion Institute of Technology New York, NY Public · 4-year | $69,954 | 376 | $20,500 | $19,095 | 2.2 |
| 32 | University of Florida Gainesville, FL Public · 4-year | $69,600 | 407 | $15,321 | $6,541 | 0.7 |
| 33 | Michigan State University East Lansing, MI Public · 4-year | $69,300 | 576 | $22,605 | $19,680 | 2.3 |
| 34 | Loyola University Chicago Chicago, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $68,942 | 125 | $23,250 | $36,079 | 4.4 |
| 35 | The University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, AL Public · 4-year | $68,227 | 352 | $24,889 | $22,420 | 2.5 |
| 36 | Ithaca College Ithaca, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $68,029 | 182 | $23,125 | $33,926 | 4.2 |
| 37 | Howard University Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $67,881 | 110 | $25,750 | $50,539 | 7.3 |
| 38 | Temple University Philadelphia, PA Public · 4-year | $67,840 | 444 | $23,827 | $28,198 | 3.6 |
| 39 | Illinois State University Normal, IL Public · 4-year | $67,752 | 101 | $21,500 | $19,398 | 2.5 |
| 40 | St. John's University-New York Queens, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $67,728 | 94 | $26,000 | $29,999 | 3.8 |
| 41 | Washington State University Pullman, WA Public · 4-year | $67,647 | 215 | $19,112 | $14,971 | 2.2 |
| 42 | South Dakota State University Brookings, SD Public · 4-year | $67,607 | 28 † | $24,499 | $19,841 | 2.6 |
| 43 | San Diego State University San Diego, CA Public · 4-year | $67,414 | 117 | $16,111 | $15,364 | 2.0 |
| 44 | Auburn University Auburn, AL Public · 4-year | $67,413 | 61 | $23,000 | $24,323 | 2.8 |
| 45 | Belmont University Nashville, TN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $67,040 | 25 † | — | $33,147 | 4.1 |
| 46 | Columbia College Chicago Chicago, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $66,798 | 103 | $24,225 | $26,598 | 3.5 |
| 47 | Hofstra University Hempstead, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $66,780 | 80 | $23,250 | $34,176 | 4.4 |
| 48 | Drexel University Philadelphia, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $66,750 | 60 | $24,249 | $38,509 | 5.1 |
| 49 | Suffolk University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $66,709 | 79 | $26,012 | $29,618 | 4.6 |
| 50 | Central Washington University Ellensburg, WA Public · 4-year | $66,538 | 46 | $20,250 | $18,476 | 2.9 |
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 Public Relations and Advertising (CIP 0909, 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 141.
- 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 Public Relations and Advertising 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | $80,712 | 6 | University of Southern California |
| District of Columbia | $78,410 | 3 | George Washington University |
| Massachusetts | $70,805 | 4 | Endicott College |
| New York | $67,728 | 9 | Syracuse University |
| Illinois | $67,275 | 8 | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign |
| Washington | $67,093 | 4 | Gonzaga University |
| Georgia | $64,934 | 3 | University of Georgia |
| Texas | $64,351 | 8 | Southern Methodist University |
| New Jersey | $63,612 | 3 | Seton Hall University |
| Tennessee | $63,314 | 3 | Belmont University |
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