2025 Best Documentary Production Schools in the Great Lakes Region

You'll be studying one of the lesser sought-after majors if you pursue a degree in documentary production. It is ranked #1106 out of 1506 major degree programs in terms of popularity. As such, your educational options may be more limited than if you were in a more popular field.

College Factual looked at 2 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Documentary Production Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 13 degrees in documentary production annually.

What's on this page: * Degree-Level Rankings

• Best Overall Documentary Production Schools List

Documentary Production Rankings by Degree Level

The documentary production school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Documentary Production Schools in the Great Lakes Region. 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 Documentary Production in the Great Lakes Region

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

Top Great Lakes Region Schools in Documentary Production

1

Columbia College Chicago
Chicago, IL

Bachelor's Degree Highest Degree Type

Columbia College Chicago is a great decision for students interested in a degree in documentary production. Columbia is a medium-sized private not-for-profit college located in the large city of Chicago.More information about a degree in documentary production from Columbia College Chicago

2

Northwestern University
Evanston, IL

Master's Degree Highest Degree Type

Northwestern University is a good decision for students interested in a degree in documentary production. Located in the city of Evanston, Northwestern is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.More information about a degree in documentary production from Northwestern University

Best Documentary Production Colleges by State

Explore the best documentary production colleges for a specific state in the Great Lakes Region .

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Michigan	915	4
Illinois	870	14

View All Rankings >

Rankings in Majors Related to Documentary Production

One of 4 majors within the Film, Video & Photographic Arts area of study, Documentary Production has other similar majors worth exploring.

Most Popular Majors Related to Documentary Production

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Film & Video Production	742
Film/Cinema/Media Studies	573
Photography	261
Other Film/Video & Photographic Arts	123

View All Documentary Production 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).

More about our data sources and methodologies.