Graduates earn a median $51,899 two years after finishing, more than 30% of master's majors. Measured across 325 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.
It pays around the middle. What you earn will depend more on where you study and what you do with it than on the subject label.
| # | University | 1 yr out | 2 yrs out | 3 yrs out | Graduates/yr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Columbia University in the City of New York | $95,483 | $101,406 | $97,077 | 83 |
| 2 | Stanford University cost & debt at this university → | $52,848 | $81,702 | not published | — |
| 3 | Northwestern University | $68,121 | $74,953 | $84,767 | — |
| 4 | Westminster University | $61,830 | $71,643 | $73,915 | 9 |
| 5 | Weber State University cost & debt at this university → | $52,972 | $70,456 | not published | 27 |
| 6 | San Jose State University cost & debt at this university → | $48,660 | $66,077 | not published | 24 |
| 7 | Johns Hopkins University cost & debt at this university → | $74,230 | $65,387 | $78,857 | 244 |
| 8 | University of Southern California cost & debt at this university → | $63,499 | $64,885 | $74,126 | 315 |
| 9 | American University | $59,305 | $64,493 | $70,156 | 78 |
| 10 | Purdue University-Main Campus cost & debt at this university → | $62,884 | $63,997 | $69,334 | 186 |
| 11 | George Washington University cost & debt at this university → | not published | $63,005 | not published | 4 |
| 12 | Seton Hall University cost & debt at this university → | $51,238 | $58,673 | $70,495 | 5 |
Two medians are worth separating. $51,899 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $45,715 is what the typical programme reports, counting a class of twenty the same as a class of two thousand. The weighted figure is higher here, which means the larger programmes in this field are the better-paying ones.
It is the median of what real graduates of this exact major earned, taken from tax records two years after they completed. It is not a starting salary, not an average of job adverts, and not a projection. The median master's major in this dataset reports $52,837, so Communications sits below the middle by $938.
Two years is early in a career. Fields with long training pipelines — medicine, law, research — look weaker at this point than they will at ten, while trades and applied technical fields peak sooner. Read a low figure in a long-pipeline subject as "slow start", not "bad degree".
There is no debt figure here on purpose. The Department of Education publishes earnings by field of study but not borrowing, so nobody can honestly tell you the debt of a specific major. Debt is published per institution — that is where our university cost pages carry it.
Whatever the subject pays, the money you do not borrow is the money you keep.
Tell us what you need and we will come back with the lenders that actually fund students from your country — including options with no US co-signer. No obligation, and we never charge you.
Classified by the Department of Education as Communication and Media Studies (CIP 0901). Source: US Department of Education College Scorecard, field-of-study earnings (median earnings of graduates who received federal financial aid, measured 1–3 years after completion). Figures are per major and credential level, pooled across US programmes. Information only, not financial advice.