If you pursue a associate degree in communication & media studies, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #24 most popular program in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 2 schools in New Jersey to determine which ones were the best for communication & media studies students pursuing a associate degree. Combined, these schools handed out 92 associate degrees in communication & media studies to qualified students.
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Average Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of associate graduates during the early years of their career. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their associate degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
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 associate 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 associate degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized communication & media studies related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for communication & media studies students working on their associate degree.
More Ways to Rank Communication & Media Studies Schools
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 Communication & Media Studies Associate Degree Schools in New Jersey list to help you make the college decision.
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Any student who is interested in an associate degree in communication & media studies has to look into County College of Morris. Located in the large suburb of Randolph, County College of Morris is a public college with a medium-sized student population.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the communications program make around $15,905 in their early career salary.
Union County College is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in communication & media studies. Located in the suburb of Cranford, Union County College is a public college with a moderately-sized student population.
Those communication & media studies students who get their associate degree from Union County College make $2,790 more than the average communications grad.
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).
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