If you pursue a bachelor's degree in
communication & media studies, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #5 most popular program in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 540 schools in the United States to determine which ones were the best for communication & media studies students pursuing a bachelor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 44,674 bachelor's degrees in communication & media studies during the <nil> academic year.
What's on this page: * Our Methodology
Your choice of communication & media studies for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we consider a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a host of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of bachelor's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their bachelor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
- Major Focus - How much a school focuses on communication & media studies students vs. other majors.
- Major Demand - How many other communication & media studies students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
- Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
- Student Debt - How much debt communication & media studies students go into to obtain their bachelor's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
- Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized communication & media studies related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for communication & media studies students working on their bachelor's degree.
One Size Does Not Fit All
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Communication & Media Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools list to help you make the college decision.
In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat.
Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in communication & media studies. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
25 Top Schools for a Bachelor's in Communications
Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in communication & media studies needs to take a look at University of Southern California. Located in the city of Los Angeles, USC is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the communication & media studies degree program at University of Southern California get $12,451 above the standard college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
More information about a bachelor’s in communication & media studies from University of Southern California
It is difficult to beat Cornell University if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in communication & media studies. Located in the small city of Ithaca, Cornell is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the communication & media studies degree program at Cornell University make $26,982 above the average graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
More information about a bachelor’s in communication & media studies from Cornell University
Northwestern University is a good decision for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in communication & media studies. Located in the city of Evanston, Northwestern is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Those communication & media studies students who get their bachelor's degree from Northwestern University earn $17,010 more than the standard communications student.
More information about a bachelor’s in communication & media studies from Northwestern University
It is hard to beat University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in communication & media studies. Located in the small city of Chapel Hill, UNC Chapel Hill is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the communication & media studies degree program at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill make $8,148 above the standard college grad with the same degree shortly after graduation.
More information about a bachelor’s in communication & media studies from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Located in the medium-sized city of Ann Arbor, U-M is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the communication & media studies major at University of Michigan - Ann Arbor get $15,356 more than the standard graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
More information about a bachelor’s in communication & media studies from University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
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