Photography is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #310 most popular degree program in the country. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 4 schools in Pennsylvania to determine which ones were the best for photography students pursuing a degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 79 degrees in photography annually.
Your choice of photography school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. For our Best Overall Photography School rankings, we roll up the results of our degree-level rankings, weighted by the number of degrees awarded at that level.
You may want to choose one of the degree levels below to find the schools of most interest to you.
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 Photography Schools in Pennsylvania list to help you make the college decision.
More interested in schools in a specific area of the country? Filter this list by region or state.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
The schools below may not offer all types of photography degrees so you may want to filter by degree level first. However, they are great for the degree levels they do offer.
Temple University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a degree in photography. Located in the city of Philadelphia, Temple is a public university with a fairly large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #97 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means Temple is a great university overall.
There were roughly 12 photography students who graduated with this degree at Temple in the most recent year we have data available.
It's difficult to beat Drexel University if you want to pursue a degree in photography. Located in the city of Philadelphia, Drexel is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population. This university ranks 10th out of 103 colleges for overall quality in the state of Pennsylvania.
There were roughly 11 photography students who graduated with this degree at Drexel in the most recent data year.
Take the first step toward a career of visual expression and doing what you love with this online associate degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
The University of the Arts is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a degree in photography. Located in the city of Philadelphia, UArts is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
There were about 6 photography students who graduated with this degree at UArts in the most recent year we have data available.
It is hard to beat Harrisburg Area Community College if you wish to pursue a degree in photography. HACC is a large public college located in the city of Harrisburg. This college ranks 30th out of 103 schools for overall quality in the state of Pennsylvania.
There were about 9 photography students who graduated with this degree at HACC in the most recent data year.
Learn to create a striking portfolio and hone the skills you need to succeed in the world of professional photography with this online digital photography degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
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).
Your choice of photography school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. For our Best Overall Photography School rankings, we roll up the results of our degree-level rankings, weighted by the number of degrees awarded at that level.
