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 reviewed 26 schools in the Plains States Region to determine which ones were the best for master's degree seekers in the field of communication sciences. Combined, these schools handed out 737 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 account for this we include a school's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a host of various 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 Plains States Region list to help you make the college decision.
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It's hard to beat University of Iowa if you wish to pursue a master's degree in communication sciences. Located in the small city of Iowa City, Iowa is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those communication sciences students who get their master's degree from University of Iowa earn $2,484 more than the average communication sciences student.
It is hard to beat University of Minnesota - Twin Cities if you want to pursue a master's degree in communication sciences. UMN Twin Cities is a very large public university located in the city of Minneapolis.
Communication Sciences master's degree recipients from University of Minnesota - Twin Cities receive an earnings boost of approximately $2,587 above the typical income of communication sciences graduates.
University of Kansas is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in communication sciences. Located in the city of Lawrence, KU is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Master's graduates who receive their degree from the communication sciences program earn about $56,000 for their early career.
University of Missouri - Columbia is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in communication sciences. Located in the city of Columbia, Mizzou is a public university with a fairly large student population.
After graduating, communication sciences master's recipients generally earn an average of $54,674 in the first five years of their career.
UNI is a medium-sized public university located in the city of Cedar Falls.
Communication Sciences master's degree recipients from University of Northern Iowa receive an earnings boost of approximately $4,205 over the average income of communication sciences majors.
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).