If you pursue a bachelor's degree in communication & media studies, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #5 most popular program in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 23 schools in Illinois to determine which ones were the best for communication & media studies students pursuing a bachelor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,510 bachelor'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 Bachelor's Degree
The communications bachelor'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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
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 ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of bachelor's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their bachelor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
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 - The number of communication & media studies students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
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 bachelor'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 colleges for communication & media studies students working on their bachelor's degree.
More Ways to Rank Communication & Media Studies Schools
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Communication & Media Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools in Illinois list, to help you choose the best school for you.
In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat.
Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.
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Northwestern University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in communication & media studies. Northwestern is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Evanston.
Communication & Media Studies bachelor's degree recipients from Northwestern University earn a boost of approximately $16,121 over the typical income of communication & media studies graduates.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a great option for students interested in a bachelor's degree in communication & media studies. Located in the small city of Champaign, UIUC is a public university with a fairly large student population.
After graduating, communications bachelor's recipients generally earn about $37,808 at the beginning of their careers.
DePaul University is a good choice for students interested in a bachelor's degree in communication & media studies. Located in the city of Chicago, DePaul is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the communications program state that they receive average early career wages of $34,453.
Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in communication & media studies has to check out Illinois State University. Located in the suburb of Normal, Illinois State is a public university with a very large student population.
Communication & Media Studies bachelor's degree recipients from Illinois State University get an earnings boost of around $2,036 over the typical earnings of communication & media studies graduates.
UIC is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Chicago.
Bachelor's recipients from the communication & media studies degree program at University of Illinois at Chicago earn $2,823 more than the standard college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Augustana is a small private not-for-profit college located in the small city of Rock Island.
Bachelor's recipients from the communication & media studies major at Augustana College get $4,717 more than the standard college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
NIU is a fairly large public university located in the suburb of Dekalb.
Bachelor's recipients from the communication & media studies major at Northern Illinois University make $2,401 above the standard college grad with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Wheaton College Illinois is a small private not-for-profit college located in the large suburb of Wheaton.
Bachelor's recipients from the communication & media studies program at Wheaton College Illinois make $3,232 above the typical college grad with the same degree shortly after graduation.
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 bachelor'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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
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