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.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 4 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Instructional Media Design Master's Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,932 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 colleges for instructional media design students working on their master'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 Instructional Media Design Master's Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region list to help you make the college decision.
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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.
Western Governors University is a great choice for individuals pursuing a master's degree in instructional media design. WGU is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Salt Lake City.
Master's graduates who receive their degree from the instructional media program make an average of $63,169 in the first couple years of working.
Brigham Young University - Provo is a good choice for students interested in a master's degree in instructional media design. BYU is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the midsize city of Provo.
Master's recipients from the instructional media design degree program at Brigham Young University - Provo make $5,954 more than the standard graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
It is hard to beat Utah State University if you wish to pursue a master's degree in instructional media design. Located in the city of Logan, USU is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Students who graduate with their master's from the instructional media program state that they receive average early career income of $69,698.
It is hard to beat Boise State University if you want to pursue a master's degree in instructional media design. Located in the medium-sized city of Boise, Boise State is a public university with a very large student population.
Master's graduates who receive their degree from the instructional media program earn an average of $68,234 in the first couple years of working.
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).
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.
