a master's degree in film, video & photographic arts is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #84 out of 343 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 11 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Film, Video & Photographic Arts Master's Degree Schools in California ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 877 master's degrees in film, video & photographic arts during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Take the first step toward a career of visual expression and doing what you love with this online associate degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
Learn to create a striking portfolio and hone the skills you need to succeed in the world of professional photography with this online digital photography degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
Choosing a Great Film, Video & Photographic Arts School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of film, video & photographic arts for getting your master's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
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 consider 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.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their master's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your master's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
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 film, video & photographic arts students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other film, video & photographic arts students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
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 film, video & photographic arts 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 film, video & photographic arts related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for film, video & photographic arts 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 Film, Video & Photographic Arts Master's Degree Schools in California list to help you make the college decision.
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Take the first step toward a career of visual expression and doing what you love with this online associate degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
Learn to create a striking portfolio and hone the skills you need to succeed in the world of professional photography with this online digital photography degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
It's difficult to beat University of Southern California if you want to pursue a master's degree in film, video & photographic arts. Located in the city of Los Angeles, USC is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Students who graduate with their master's from the film program state that they receive average early career earnings of $26,843.
Chapman University is a great decision for students pursuing a master's degree in film, video & photographic arts. Located in the city of Orange, Chapman is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.
After graduating, film master's recipients typically make an average of $28,832 in the first five years of their career.
University of California - Los Angeles is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in film, video & photographic arts. UCLA is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Los Angeles.
Film, Video & Photographic Arts master's degree recipients from University of California - Los Angeles receive an earnings boost of approximately $9,709 above the average earnings of film, video & photographic arts majors.
Academy of Art University is a moderately-sized private for-profit university located in the city of San Francisco.
Master's recipients from the film, video & photographic arts program at Academy of Art University earn $11,666 above the typical college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
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.
Your choice of film, video & photographic arts for getting your master's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
