a master's degree in communication & media studies is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #44 out of 343 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
College Factual looked at 2 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Communication & Media Studies Master's Degree Schools in Pennsylvania ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 56 master's degrees in communication & media studies to qualified students.
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Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of master's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their master'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 much a school focuses on communication & media studies students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of communication & media studies students who choose to seek a master's degree at the school.
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 communication & media studies students go into to obtain their master'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 communication & media studies related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for communication & media studies students working on their master's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Communication & Media Studies Master's Degree Schools in Pennsylvania ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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Villanova University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a master's degree in communication & media studies. Villanova is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of Villanova.
Master's recipients from the communication & media studies degree program at Villanova University earn $8,349 more than the standard college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
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).