Public Relations & Advertising is of the hottest bachelor's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #32 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.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 8 schools in Illinois to determine which ones were the best for public relations & advertising students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 673 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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
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 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
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 schools for public relations & advertising students working on their bachelor's degree.
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 Public Relations & Advertising Bachelor's Degree Schools in Illinois list to help you make the college 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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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a good decision for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in public relations & advertising. Located in the small city of Champaign, UIUC is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the public relations & advertising program at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign earn $7,425 above the typical graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in public relations & advertising needs to take a look at DePaul University. Located in the large city of Chicago, DePaul is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the public relations program report average early career wages of $41,234.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in public relations & advertising has to check out Loyola University Chicago. Located in the city of Chicago, Loyola Chicago is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.
Public Relations & Advertising bachelor's degree recipients from Loyola University Chicago get an earnings boost of approximately $2,670 above the typical earnings of public relations & advertising graduates.
It's hard to beat Bradley University if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in public relations & advertising. Located in the medium-sized city of Peoria, Bradley is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.
After graduation, public relations bachelor's recipients usually make about $38,351 at the beginning of their careers.
Located in the suburb of Normal, Illinois State is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the public relations & advertising degree program at Illinois State University make $3,236 above the standard graduate 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).
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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
