Ranked #32 in popularity, instructional media design is one of the most sought-after master's degree programs in the nation. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 5 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Instructional Media Design Master's Degree Schools in Illinois ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 123 master's degrees in instructional media design to qualified students.
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 1 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.8
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 1
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 0 offers with relevance >= 1.0
DEBUG: Backfilling with 1 offers with relevance >= 0.9
Choosing a Great Instructional Media Design School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of instructional media design for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality instructional media program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we include a school's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a host of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
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 master's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their master's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
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 instructional media design students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of instructional media design students who choose to seek a master's degree at the school.
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 instructional media design students go into to obtain their master'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 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.
More Ways to Rank Instructional Media Design Schools
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Instructional Media Design Master's Degree Schools in Illinois ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "education//instructional-media-design"
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.
It is difficult to beat Concordia University, Chicago if you want to pursue a master's degree in instructional media design. Located in the large suburb of River Forest, Concordia University, Chicago is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.
Those instructional media design students who get their master's degree from Concordia University, Chicago earn $3,014 more than the typical instructional media student.
Northern Illinois University is a great decision for students interested in a master's degree in instructional media design. Located in the small suburb of Dekalb, NIU is a public university with a large student population.
Instructional Media Design master's degree recipients from Northern Illinois University earn a boost of about $3,321 above the average income of instructional media design graduates.
It is difficult to beat Aurora University if you want to pursue a master's degree in instructional media design. Aurora is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of Aurora.
Master's students who receive their degree from the instructional media program earn about $63,938 for their early career.
Every student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in instructional media design has to look into Western Illinois University. Located in the remote town of Macomb, WIU is a public university with a moderately-sized student population.
Students who graduate with their master's from the instructional media program state that they receive average early career wages of $60,911.
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 instructional media design for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality instructional media program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
