If you pursue a master's degree in instructional media design, 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.
College Factual looked at 5 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Instructional Media Design Master's Degree Schools in California ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 410 master's degrees in instructional media design during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Instructional Media Design School for Your Master's Degree
The instructional media master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. 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 for a Master's Degree 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 master's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their master'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 instructional media design students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other instructional media design students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
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 instructional media design to pay back their student loans after receiving their master's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized instructional media design related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for instructional media design students working on their master'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 Instructional Media Design Master's Degree Schools in California list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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Learn to assess and integrate technology into your school's curriculum and improve students' learning with this specialized online master's from Southern New Hampshire University.
California State University - Fullerton is a good choice for individuals interested in a master's degree in instructional media design. Located in the large suburb of Fullerton, Cal State Fullerton is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Master's students who receive their degree from the instructional media program make an average of $78,229 in their early career salary.
National University is a great choice for students pursuing a master's degree in instructional media design. Located in the city of San Diego, National University is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.
Master's graduates who receive their degree from the instructional media program earn an average of $82,830 for their early career.
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).