2025 Best Advertising Schools in California

If you pursue a degree in advertising, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #149 most popular program in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.

In 2025, College Factual analyzed 2 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Advertising Schools in California ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 183 degrees in advertising to qualified students.

Jump to one of the following sections: * Degree-Level Rankings

• Best Overall Advertising Schools List

Pick Your Advertising Degree Level

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 Advertising Schools in California list to help you make the college decision. You can also filter this list by location to find schools closer to you.

In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you. When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.

More information on how we come up with our rankings can be found here: College Factual's Data Methodology.

Best Schools for Advertising in California

The schools below may not offer all types of advertising degrees so you may want to filter by degree level first. However, they are great for the degree levels they do offer.

Top California Schools in Advertising

1

Pepperdine University
Malibu, CA

Bachelor's Degree Highest Degree Type

48 Advertising Degrees Awarded

8.3% Growth in Graduates

Pepperdine University is a great decision for students interested in a degree in advertising. Located in the large suburb of Malibu, Pepperdine is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.More information about a degree in advertising from Pepperdine University

2

University of San Francisco
San Francisco, CA

Bachelor's Degree Highest Degree Type

It's difficult to beat University of San Francisco if you want to pursue a degree in advertising. USFCA is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the large city of San Francisco.More information about a degree in advertising from University of San Francisco

Best Advertising Colleges in the Far Western US Region

Explore all the Best Advertising Colleges in the Far Western US Area or other specific states within that region.

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Washington	831	75
Oregon	587	352

View All Rankings >

Advertising Related Rankings by Major

One of 10 majors within the Public Relations & Advertising area of study, Advertising has other similar majors worth exploring.

Most Popular Related Majors

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Public Relations	289
Public Relations, Advertising, & Applied Communication	150
Communication Management and Strategic Communications	78
International & Intercultural Communication	59
Other Public Relations, Advertising, & Applied Communication	58
Health Communication	56
General Organizational Communication	41
Technical & Scientific Communication	7
Political Communication	1

View All Advertising Related Majors >

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 Bill Koplitz.

More about our data sources and methodologies.