If you pursue a master's degree in communication sciences, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #24 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 49 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Communication Sciences Master's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 1,574 master's degrees in communication sciences to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Communication Sciences School for Your Master's Degree
The communication sciences master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality communication sciences program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we include a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a combination of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
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
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to communication sciences students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of communication sciences 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 easy is it for communication sciences 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 communication sciences related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for communication sciences 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 Communication Sciences Master's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region list to help you make the college decision.
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Northwestern University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in communication sciences. Located in the city of Evanston, Northwestern is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Communication Sciences master's degree recipients from Northwestern University earn a boost of approximately $5,314 over the average income of communication sciences majors.
Any student who is interested in a master's degree in communication sciences needs to check out University of Wisconsin - Madison. UW - Madison is a fairly large public university located in the city of Madison.
Students who graduate with their master's from the communication sciences program report average early career earnings of $52,000.
Indiana University - Bloomington is a wonderful option for individuals interested in a master's degree in communication sciences. Located in the city of Bloomington, IU Bloomington is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Soon after graduating, communication sciences master's recipients typically earn around $56,195 in the first five years of their career.
Ohio State University - Main Campus is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in communication sciences. Located in the city of Columbus, Ohio State is a public university with a very large student population.
Master's graduates who receive their degree from the communication sciences program make an average of $55,631 in their early career salary.
UIUC is a very large public university located in the city of Champaign.
Master's recipients from the communication sciences program at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign make $11,186 more than the average college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Located in the city of West Lafayette, Purdue is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Master's recipients from the communication sciences program at Purdue University - Main Campus make $3,457 above the average graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
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Honorable Mentions
These are some additional schools worth mentioning that are also great but just didn't quite make the cut to earn our top Best Communication Sciences Master's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region award.
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 communication sciences master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality communication sciences program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
