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.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 12 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Communication & Media Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools in Virginia ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,739 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
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 Bachelor's Degree Schools in Virginia list to help you make the college decision.
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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Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in communication & media studies needs to take a look at James Madison University. JMU is a very large public university located in the small city of Harrisonburg.
Those communication & media studies students who get their bachelor's degree from James Madison University make $6,660 more than the typical communications student.
Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in communication & media studies has to check out Virginia Tech. Located in the city of Blacksburg, Virginia Tech is a public school with a very large student population.
Those communication & media studies students who get their bachelor's degree from Virginia Tech earn $8,200 more than the standard communications student.
It is hard to beat Virginia Commonwealth University if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in communication & media studies. Located in the city of Richmond, VCU is a public university with a very large student population.
Soon after graduating, communications bachelor's recipients usually make around $35,808 at the beginning of their careers.
Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in communication & media studies has to check out Liberty University. Located in the city of Lynchburg, Liberty University is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the communications program report average early career wages of $35,392.
Located in the large suburb of Ashland, Randolph - Macon is a private not-for-profit college with a small student population.
Those communication & media studies students who get their bachelor's degree from Randolph - Macon College earn $4,219 more than the standard 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).