Communication & Media Studies is of the hottest bachelor's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #5 most popular major in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 25 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Communication & Media Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 2,087 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
Your choice of communication & media studies for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we consider a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a combination of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their bachelor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your bachelor'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
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 - How many other communication & media studies students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
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 bachelor'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 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 bachelor'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 Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
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Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in communication & media studies needs to check out University of Colorado Boulder. Located in the city of Boulder, CU - Boulder is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those communication & media studies students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Colorado Boulder receive $2,710 more than the average communications graduate.
University of Denver is a wonderful option for students pursuing a bachelor's degree in communication & media studies. DU is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Denver.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the communications program earn about $36,234 in the first couple years of working.
University of Utah is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in communication & media studies. Located in the medium-sized city of Salt Lake City, U of U is a public university with a very large student population.
Communication & Media Studies bachelor's degree recipients from University of Utah earn a boost of approximately $6,773 over the average earnings of communication & media studies graduates.
It's hard to beat Colorado State University - Fort Collins if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in communication & media studies. Located in the medium-sized city of Fort Collins, Colorado State is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the communications program earn an average of $38,731 in the first couple years of working.
Located in the medium-sized city of Provo, BYU is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Communication & Media Studies bachelor's degree recipients from Brigham Young University - Provo earn a boost of around $9,719 over the typical income of communication & media studies majors.
CU Anschutz is a very large public university located in the large city of Denver.
Communication & Media Studies bachelor's degree recipients from University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus receive an earnings boost of approximately $2,634 over the typical earnings of communication & media studies majors.
Located in the small city of Ogden, WSU is a public university with a very large student population.
Communication & Media Studies bachelor's degree recipients from Weber State University earn a boost of approximately $6,181 over the typical income of communication & media studies majors.
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).
Your choice of communication & media studies for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
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