2023 Schools for a Doctorate Highly Focused on Communications Major in Tennessee

When pursuing a degree in today’s world, students have many different options to choose from. College Factual was founded, in part, to help students make the decision as to what would be the best school for them. Our “Schools for a Doctorate Highly Focused on Communications Major in Tennessee” ranking is part of that endeavor.

Communication & Media Studies is one of the most popular majors in the nation, ranking 10th of all the majors we analyze. In 2021-2022, 62,855 degrees were awarded to students with this major. In , communication & media studies graduates who were awarded their degree in , earned an average of $34,194 and had an average of $23,803 in loans still to pay off.

Across Tennessee, there were 899 communication & media studies graduates with average earnings and debt of $29,183 and $24,066 respectively. At the doctor’s degree level specifically, there were 12 communication & media studies graduates with average earnings and debt of $77,943 and $127,738 respectively.

For this year’s “Schools for a Doctorate Highly Focused on Communications Major in Tennessee” ranking, we looked at 3 colleges that offer a degree in communication & media studies. The colleges and universities that top this list are recognized because their communication & media studies program is one of the largest majors offered at the school.

For more information, check out our ranking methodology.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we’ve developed the “Schools for a Doctorate Highly Focused on Communications Major in Tennessee” ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.

One of our other unique offerings is College Combat. This tool lets you build your own customized comparisons utilizing the factors that are most important to you. We encourage you to try it out and pit your favorite colleges and universities head to head! If you don’t have time right now, you can bookmark it for later.

Schools for a Doctorate Highly Focused on Communications Major in Tennessee

The colleges and universities below are the best for tennessee doctor’s degree communications students.

Top 3 Most Focused Doctor’s Degree Colleges for Communication & Media Studies in Tennessee

1

The University of Tennessee - Knoxville
Knoxville, Tennessee

#3 overall quality in Tennessee

You’ll be in good company if you decide to attend The University of Tennessee - Knoxville. It ranked #1 on our 2023 Schools for a Doctorate Highly Focused on Communications Major in Tennessee list. The University of Tennessee - Knoxville is a large school located in Knoxville, Tennessee that handed out 6 doctorate’s communications degrees in 2021-2022.

With a freshman retention rate of 88%, the school does an excellent job of retaining its undergraduate students. The undergrad student loan default rate at the school is 1.1%, which is quite low when compared to the national default rate of 10.1%.

Full The University of Tennessee - Knoxville Communication & Media Studies Report

2

University of Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee

#11 overall quality in Tennessee

Out of the 3 schools in the Schools for a Doctorate Highly Focused on Communications Major in Tennessee that were part of this year’s ranking, University of Memphis landed the #2 spot on the list. University of Memphis is a large public school situated in Memphis, Tennessee. It awarded 2 doctorate’s communications degrees in 2021-2022.

The school has an impressive undergrad student loan default rate. It’s only 3.5%, which is much lower than the national rate of 10.1%.

Read full report on Communication & Media Studies at University of Memphis

3

Vanderbilt University
Nashville, Tennessee

#1 overall quality in Tennessee

You’ll be in good company if you decide to attend Vanderbilt University. It ranked #3 on our 2023 Schools for a Doctorate Highly Focused on Communications Major in Tennessee list. Located in Nashville, Tennessee, this fairly large private not-for-profit school awarded 4 degrees to qualified doctorate’s communications students in 2021-2022.

The school has an impressive undergrad student loan default rate. It’s only 0.5%, which is much lower than the national rate of 10.1%. The school has an excellent freshman retention rate of 97%, which means students like the school well enough to return for a second year. The undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio of 8 to 1 is a sign that students will have more opportunities to engage with their professors one-on-one.

Read more about Communication & Media Studies at Vanderbilt

Notes and References

References

• The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of our data about colleges.
• Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
• Information about the national average student loan default rate is from the U.S. Department of Education and refers to data about the 2016 borrower cohort tracking period for which the cohort default rate (CDR) was 10.1%.

Read more about our data sources and methodologies

Footnotes

• *Avg Salary and Avg 4-Year Grad Rate are for the top schools only.
• Some schools otherwise deserving of recognition may have been removed from this ranking in the event that new data identified post-publication warranted it, or at the request of the school.

Credits

• Credit for the banner image above goes to UNU-WIDER from Helsinki, Finland.