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Best Value Journalism Schools in Illinois

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2023 Best Value Journalism Schools in Illinois

Highlighting Quality Schools With More Affordable Pricing

3 Colleges
$23,900 Avg Tuition & Fees*
$33,522 Avg Salary

Finding the Best Journalism School for You

In 2020-2021, 32 degrees and certificates were awarded to journalism students who went to a Illinois college or university. This makes it the #145 most popular major in the state.

There are so many programs in today's world that it can tough to figure out which one is the right one for you. You can choose a traditional brick and mortar school, or with the growth of online education, you can attend a school half-way across the country without even leaving your house. Also there are many trade schools that offer short-term programs that open up more career options.

To help you arm yourself with the information you need to make your decision, Grad Degree Search has developed this Best Value Journalism Schools in Illinois ranking. This report analyzed 3 schools in Illinois to see which ones offered the best value programs for journalism students. The goal was to highlight schools with more affordable prices than others offering similar quality experiences.

This ranking is not just a list of inexpensive schools. We also consider each school's quality, since we believe a low-quality school may not be a 'bargain' at any price. Specifically, our score for quality is discounted by the published tuition and fees charged by the given college. This gives the cost per unit of quality for each college. The more quality your dollar buys, the better the value.

For nationwide and regional rankings, we use out-of-state tuition and fees in our calculations. For statewide rankings, we use average in-state tuition and fees.

2023 Best Value Journalism Schools in Illinois

The following schools top our list of the Best Value Journalism Colleges.

Best Illinois Schools for Affordable Quality in Journalism

$17,634 Average Tuition & Fees

Our analysis found University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to be the best value school for journalism students who want to pursue a degree in Illinois. UIUC is a very large public school located in the city of Champaign.

The average tuition and fees for an in-state undergraduate at UIUC are $17,634 a year.

UIUC did well in our overall quality rankings, too. It placed #3 on our Best Journalism Schools in Illinois list.

Full Journalism at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Report

$12,053 Average Tuition & Fees

A rank of #2 on this year’s list means University of Illinois at Springfield is a great value for journalism students. Located in the medium-sized city of Springfield, UIS is a public school with a small student population.

In-state tuition fees for undergraduate students at UIS are $12,053 per year.

Read full report on Journalism at University of Illinois at Springfield

#3

DePaul University

Chicago, IL
$42,012 Average Tuition & Fees

A rank of #3 on this year’s list means DePaul University is a great value for journalism students. DePaul is a very large private not-for-profit school located in the large city of Chicago.

The average tuition and fees for an in-state undergraduate at DePaul are $42,012 a year.

Read More…

Best Value Journalism Colleges in the Great Lakes Region

Explore all the Best Value Journalism Schools in the Great Lakes Area or other specific states within that region.

State Degrees Awarded
Michigan 8
Ohio 36
Indiana 7
Wisconsin 13

Journalism is one of 5 different types of programs to choose from.

Related Major Annual Graduates
Communication & Media Studies 5,059
Public Relations & Advertising 2,828
Radio, Television & Digital Communication 2,562
Communication & Journalism (Other) 341
Publishing 214

Notes and References

*These averages are for the top 3 schools only.

  • 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).
  • Credit for the banner image above goes to Jfurrer.

More about our data sources and methodologies.

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