Ranked #32 in popularity, public relations & advertising is one of the most sought-after bachelor's degree programs in the nation. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 14 schools in the Southwest Region to determine which ones were the best for public relations & advertising students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 2,092 bachelor's degrees in public relations & advertising to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Public Relations & Advertising School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of public relations & advertising 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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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.
Average Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor's 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 much a school focuses on public relations & advertising students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of public relations & advertising 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 much debt public relations & advertising 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 public relations & advertising related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for public relations & advertising students working on their bachelor's degree.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Public Relations & Advertising Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
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It is difficult to beat The University of Texas at Austin if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in public relations & advertising. Located in the large city of Austin, UT Austin is a public university with a very large student population.
Public Relations & Advertising bachelor's degree recipients from The University of Texas at Austin earn a boost of around $7,770 above the average income of public relations & advertising majors.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in public relations & advertising needs to look into Southern Methodist University. Located in the large suburb of Dallas, SMU is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.
Those public relations & advertising students who get their bachelor's degree from Southern Methodist University earn $11,626 more than the standard public relations graduate.
Texas Tech University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in public relations & advertising. Texas Tech is a very large public university located in the city of Lubbock.
Soon after graduating, public relations bachelor's recipients generally earn an average of $41,023 in the first five years of their career.
It's difficult to beat Texas Christian University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in public relations & advertising. Located in the large city of Fort Worth, TCU is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Public Relations & Advertising bachelor's degree recipients from Texas Christian University earn a boost of approximately $7,851 over the typical earnings of public relations & advertising majors.
Located in the city of Houston, UH is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those public relations & advertising students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Houston receive $2,270 more than the average public relations student.
Located in the midsize suburb of Norman, University of Oklahoma is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Public Relations & Advertising bachelor's degree recipients from University of Oklahoma Norman Campus receive an earnings boost of approximately $5,557 above the typical income of public relations & advertising 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 public relations & advertising 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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
