If you pursue a bachelor's degree in public relations & advertising, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #32 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 42 schools in the Southeast Region to determine which ones were the best for public relations & advertising students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 3,787 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. 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 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 complete 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 Southeast Region 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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It's difficult to beat University of Georgia if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in public relations & advertising. Located in the city of Athens, UGA is a public university with a very large student population.
Those public relations & advertising students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Georgia earn $8,275 more than the typical public relations graduate.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in public relations & advertising has to look into University of Florida. Located in the medium-sized city of Gainesville, UF is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Public Relations & Advertising bachelor's degree recipients from University of Florida receive an earnings boost of around $5,048 above the average income of public relations & advertising majors.
It's hard to beat The University of Alabama if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in public relations & advertising. UA is a fairly large public university located in the city of Tuscaloosa.
Public Relations & Advertising bachelor's degree recipients from The University of Alabama receive an earnings boost of around $5,394 above the average earnings of public relations & advertising graduates.
U Miami is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Coral Gables.
Bachelor's recipients from the public relations & advertising program at University of Miami make $6,866 above the typical college graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
UofSC is a fairly large public university located in the medium-sized city of Columbia.
Those public relations & advertising students who get their bachelor's degree from University of South Carolina - Columbia receive $5,923 more than the typical public relations student.
UK is a very large public university located in the city of Lexington.
Those public relations & advertising students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Kentucky make $8,224 more than the typical public relations grad.
Located in the city of Tallahassee, Florida State is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the public relations & advertising degree program at Florida State University earn $4,009 above the standard college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
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).