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Best Value Communication & Journalism Master's Degree Schools in California

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2023 Best Value Communication & Journalism Master's Degree Schools in California

Highlighting Quality Schools With More Affordable Pricing

25 Colleges
$17,412 Avg Tuition & Fees*
$47,415 Avg Salary

Finding the Best Communication & Journalism Master's Degree School for You

In 2020-2021, 858 degrees and certificates were awarded to communication and journalism students who went to a California college or university. This makes it the #18 most popular major in the state.

Today's students have lots of options to pick from when considering higher education opportunities. 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 assist you in seeing some of the education options that are available to you, Grad Degree Search has created its Best Value Communication & Journalism Master's Degree Schools in California ranking. This report analyzed 25 schools in California to see which ones offered the best value master's degree programs for communication and journalism students. The goal was to highlight schools with more affordable prices than others offering similar quality experiences.

When determining this ranking, we place a high emphasis on the school's quality as well as its sticker price. Even though a college may be affordable, it may not offer value. 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.

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

2023 Best Value Communication & Journalism Master’s Degree Schools in California

Check out the communication and journalism master's degree programs at these schools if you want to get the best value for your educational dollar.

Top 10 Best Communication & Journalism Master's Degree Schools

Our 2023 rankings named California State University - Long Beach the best value school in California for communication and journalism students working on their master’s degree. CSULB is a fairly large public school located in the city of Long Beach.

CSULB graduate students pay an average of $8,280 in in-state tuition and fees each year.

Read full report on Communication & Journalism at California State University - Long Beach

You’ll be in good company if you decide to attend California State University - Sacramento. It ranked #2 on our 2023 Best Value Communication & Journalism Master’s Degree Schools in California list. Located in the city of Sacramento, Sac State is a public college with a very large student population.

In-state tuition fees for graduate students at Sac State are $8,826 per year.

Read More…

#3

San Diego State University

San Diego, CA

You’ll be in good company if you decide to attend San Diego State University. It ranked #3 on our 2023 Best Value Communication & Journalism Master’s Degree Schools in California list. Located in the city of San Diego, SDSU is a public school with a very large student population.

SDSU graduate students pay an average of $9,570 in in-state tuition and fees each year.

Read full report on Communication & Journalism at San Diego State University

#4

San Francisco State University

San Francisco, CA

The excellent master’s degree programs at San Francisco State University helped the school earn the #4 place on this year’s ranking of the best value communication and journalism schools in California. Located in the city of San Francisco, SFSU is a public college with a fairly large student population.

The average tuition and fees for an in-state graduate student at SFSU are $8,738 a year.

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Out of the 25 schools in California that were part of this year’s ranking, University of California - Santa Barbara landed the # 5 spot on the list. UCSB is a very large public school located in the midsize suburb of Santa Barbara.

UCSB graduate students pay an average of $13,581 in in-state tuition and fees each year.

Read full report on Communication & Journalism at University of California - Santa Barbara

San Jose State University ranked #6 on this year’s Best Value Communication & Journalism Master’s Degree Schools in California list. San Jose State is a fairly large public school located in the large city of San Jose.

In-state tuition fees for graduate students at San Jose State are $9,286 per year.

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California State University - Fresno landed the #7 spot in the 2023 rankings for the best value master’s degree communication and journalism programs. Located in the city of Fresno, Fresno State is a public college with a fairly large student population.

Fresno State graduate students pay an average of $8,087 in in-state tuition and fees each year.

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With a ranking of #8, California State University - East Bay did quite well on this year’s best value schools for communication and journalism students working on their master’s degree. Located in the suburb of Hayward, Cal State East Bay is a public school with a fairly large student population.

In-state tuition fees for graduate students at Cal State East Bay are $8,429 per year.

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University of California - Davis did quite well in this year’s ranking of the best places for communication and journalism students to get a master’s degree. It came in at #9 on the list. UC Davis is a very large public school located in the suburb of Davis.

UC Davis graduate students pay an average of $13,608 in in-state tuition and fees each year.

Read full report on Communication & Journalism at University of California - Davis

California State University - Chico did quite well in this year’s ranking of the best places for communication and journalism students to get a master’s degree. It came in at #10 on the list. Chico State is a fairly large public school located in the medium-sized city of Chico.

In-state tuition fees for graduate students at Chico State are $9,298 per year.

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Best Value Communication & Journalism Colleges in the Far Western US Region

Explore all the Best Value Communication & Journalism Colleges in the Far Western US Area or other specific states within that region.

State Degrees Awarded
Washington 243
Oregon 115
Nevada 30
Hawaii 26
Alaska 4

Communication & Journalism Majors to Study

Major Annual Graduates
Communication & Media Studies 5,059
Public Relations & Advertising 2,828
Radio, Television & Digital Communication 2,562
Journalism 1,238
Communication & Journalism (Other) 341
Publishing 214

Related Major Annual Graduates
Education 199,724
Psychology 42,013
Social Sciences 22,292
Library Science 5,929
History 4,391

Notes and References

*These averages are for the top 25 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 Josh Hallett.

More about our data sources and methodologies.

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