Communications & media

Communication and Media Studies

Whitman College · Walla Walla, WA

Medium evidenceMatched peers12 institutions · same subjectSee the evidence

The degree in numbers

Cost & earnings.

Annual tuition$61,492Institution-level tuition; programme fees may differ · before aid
Grouped debt estimate$26,326Same subject at 12 matched peer institutions · bachelor's
Annual credentials awarded9Average of available recent award years; not the earnings sample size.

Earnings context

One career stage.
A clearer comparison.

USD · Bachelor's · 2 years after completion
Same source release. National references exclude this degree.

Selected degree estimate$38,559
Same subject · national$33,535
Communications & media · national$32,529

Behind the number

Your comparison group.

Medium evidence

Same subject at 12 matched peer institutions · bachelor's

Grouped estimate. Middle half of comparison values: $32,524–$39,832.

Historical earnings archive. College Scorecard legacy FOS archive (file dated 2022-01-19; cohorts vary). Do not interpret this as today's graduate salary. Further study and career changes are not modelled by this early-career figure.

Bachelor's outcomes · 2 years after completion
Institution & subjectReported earnings
DePauw UniversityCommunication and Media Studies$43,054
Furman UniversityCommunication and Media Studies$40,140
Pepperdine UniversityCommunication and Media Studies$39,369
Emerson CollegeCommunication and Media Studies$28,212
The College of WoosterCommunication and Media Studies$38,829
St Lawrence UniversityCommunication and Media Studies$39,729
University of San DiegoCommunication and Media Studies$38,289
Hobart William Smith CollegesCommunication and Media Studies$32,569
Austin CollegeCommunication and Media Studies$23,351
Clark UniversityCommunication and Media Studies$32,391
Fairfield UniversityCommunication and Media Studies$46,673
Muhlenberg CollegeCommunication and Media Studies$34,298
How matching & uncertainty work

We first look for the same subject code (or exact subject name), qualification, country, currency, source release and earnings horizon. Peer institutions are matched using admissions selectivity, completion rates, undergraduate size and institution type, with a small preference for the same region. These are institutional proxies, not a ranking of programme quality.

If subject-matched peers are sparse, we try related subjects at closely matched universities, related degrees at this university, then an explicitly labelled national reference. We never multiply a salary by a university prestige score.

Peer and national estimates give each reporting institution one vote, after taking the median of its related programmes. Shared branch-campus outcomes count once. The middle-half range describes variation between reporting institutions. It is not an individual salary range or a statistical confidence interval.

Evidence labels describe match quality and coverage, not validated prediction accuracy. Admissions and size are undergraduate institutional measures, so graduate-degree comparisons are especially approximate.

Historical cohort outcomes are not promised salaries or a causal effect of attending this programme. College Scorecard earnings cover eligible federal-aid recipients, not every graduate or international student. Source definitions ↗