2025 Best Journalism Bachelor's Degree Schools in North Carolina

If you plan on getting your bachelor's degree in journalism, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #46 in the country in terms of popularity. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.

College Factual reviewed 2 schools in North Carolina to determine which ones were the best for bachelor's degree seekers in the field of journalism. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 105 bachelor's degrees in journalism during the 2022-2023 academic year.

What's on this page: * Our Methodology

• Best Bachelor’s Degree Schools List

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 many resources a school devotes to journalism students as compared to other majors.
• Major Demand - How many other journalism 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 journalism 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 journalism related body.

Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for journalism students working on their bachelor's degree.

More Ways to Rank Journalism Schools

Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Journalism Bachelor's Degree Schools in North Carolina ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that 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.

Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study Journalism in North Carolina

Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in journalism.

Top North Carolina Schools for a Bachelor's in Journalism

1

Elon University
Elon, NC

38 Annual Graduates

$34,105 Median Starting Salary

It's difficult to beat Elon University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in journalism. Elon is a medium-sized private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Elon.

Those journalism students who get their bachelor's degree from Elon University make $3,495 more than the typical journalism grad.

More information about a bachelor’s in journalism from Elon University

2

Appalachian State University
Boone, NC

36 Annual Graduates

$27,116 Median Starting Salary

$21,228 Median Student Debt

It's hard to beat Appalachian State University if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in journalism. Appalachian State is a fairly large public university located in the town of Boone.

Soon after graduation, journalism bachelor's recipients generally make about $27,116 in their early careers.

More information about a bachelor’s in journalism from Appalachian State University

Best Journalism Colleges in the Southeast Region

Explore all the Best Journalism Schools in the Southeast Area or other specific states within that region.

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Florida	225	273
Georgia	224	621
Tennessee	220	290
Virginia	213	128
South Carolina	195	89
Kentucky	187	181
Alabama	184	216
Louisiana	171	54
Mississippi	169	111
Arkansas	167	245
West Virginia	147	204

View All Rankings >

Journalism Related Rankings by Major

Journalism is one of 5 different types of Communication & Journalism programs to choose from.

Journalism Focus Areas

Major	Annual Graduates
General Journalism	97
Other Journalism	8

Most Popular Majors Related to Journalism

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Communication & Media Studies	2,381
Public Relations & Advertising	337
Radio, Television & Digital Communication	246

Notes and References

• The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
• 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 the rest 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).
• Credit for the banner image above goes to Jfurrer. More about our data sources and methodologies.