If you plan on getting your master's degree in communication & media studies, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #44 in the country in terms of popularity. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 4 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Communication & Media Studies Master's Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 270 master's degrees in communication & media studies during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Communication & Media Studies School for Your Master's Degree
The communications master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality communications program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their master's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your master's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to communication & media studies students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other communication & media studies students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How easy is it for communication & media studies to pay back their student loans after receiving their master's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized communication & media studies related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for communication & media studies students working on their master's degree.
More Ways to Rank Communication & Media Studies Schools
The communications 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 Communication & Media Studies Master's Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region.
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It's difficult to beat University of Denver if you want to pursue a master's degree in communication & media studies. Located in the large city of Denver, DU is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.
Master's recipients from the communication & media studies major at University of Denver get $3,081 above the typical college graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Every student who is interested in a master's degree in communication & media studies needs to check out Weber State University. WSU is a fairly large public university located in the small city of Ogden.
Communication & Media Studies master's degree recipients from Weber State University earn a boost of approximately $7,226 above the average income of communication & media studies majors.
Southern Utah University is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in communication & media studies. Southern Utah University is a large public university located in the remote town of Cedar City.
After graduation, communications master's recipients typically earn around $47,538 at the beginning of their careers.
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).
The communications master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality communications program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
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