Online Public Relations, Advertising, and Applied Communication Undergraduate certificate
6 programs — 1 with federal cost data, the rest suppressed for small class sizes and listed after them, ordered by median debt against median earnings — lowest first.
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Delivery
Hide for-profit collegesWhat our data shows about for-profit collegesAcross the creative fields on this site, students at private for-profit institutions borrow 27% more than students at public ones ($29,332 against $23,033) and earn 15% less four years after completing ($38,361 against $45,110).The combined effect is severe. Median debt at a for-profit equals 70% of a graduate’s annual earnings, against 47% at a public institution. And 10% of for-profit programs leave graduates owing more than they earn in a year — against 1% of public ones. Ten times the rate.This is a pattern across 212 for-profit programs, not a handful of outliers, and it holds in every creative field we cover. It does not mean no for-profit program is worth taking: some appear high in our best-value rankings, and this filter hides those too. It means the odds are materially worse, and the burden of proof sits with the school.Figures are medians computed from the College Scorecard and IPEDS data behind every table on this site.
| Institution | Programcredential and delivery | at completion | 4 yrs after | Median federal loan debt at completion, divided by median earnings four years later. It answers a single question: how much of one year’s income do you owe on the day you finish?Below 50% is generally considered manageable. Above 100% means graduates owe more than they earn in a year, and repayment on a standard ten-year plan starts to consume a serious share of income.Debt covers federal loans only, so real ratios are often worse. Both figures are medians — half of graduates fall on the wrong side of each. |
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| Boise State UniversityID · PublicRequest information → | Public Relations, Advertising, and Applied CommunicationUndergraduate certificate · Online or on campusWhat this figure actually coversThe federal government reports debt and earnings for a whole program family rather than one degree. At this institution that family also includes:Public Relations/Image ManagementCommunication Management and Strategic CommunicationsThe figures on this row describe all of them together. We cannot separate them, and we do not estimate. | $22,248 | $61,544 | 36% |
| Eastern Kentucky UniversityKY · PublicRequest information → | Public Relations/Image ManagementUndergraduate certificate · Fully onlineWhat this figure actually coversThe federal government reports debt and earnings for a whole program family rather than one degree. At this institution that family also includes:Organizational Communication, GeneralThe figures on this row describe all of them together. We cannot separate them, and we do not estimate. | Not reported | Not reported | — |
| Indiana University-IndianapolisIN · PublicRequest information → | Public Relations, Advertising, and Applied CommunicationUndergraduate certificate · Online or on campusWhat this figure actually coversThe federal government reports debt and earnings for a whole program family rather than one degree. At this institution that family also includes:Public Relations/Image ManagementSports CommunicationHealth CommunicationTechnical and Scientific CommunicationThe figures on this row describe all of them together. We cannot separate them, and we do not estimate. | Not reported | Not reported | — |
| Johnson & Wales University-OnlineRI · Private nonprofitRequest information → | AdvertisingUndergraduate certificate · Fully online | Not reported | Not reported | — |
| Kansas State UniversityKS · PublicRequest information → | Public Relations, Advertising, and Applied CommunicationUndergraduate certificate · Fully online | Not reported | Not reported | — |
| Mesa Community CollegeAZ · PublicRequest information → | Public Relations/Image ManagementUndergraduate certificate · Fully online | Not reported | Not reported | — |
Source: College Scorecard, Field of Study (retrieved September 2026)
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One thing these figures cannot tell you
Earnings and debt are reported by the federal government at a four-digit program level, so a figure shown against “Public Relations, Advertising, and Applied Communication” covers every related program at that institution rather than one named degree. That pooling also spans delivery: where a school runs the same credential both online and on campus, the federal figures combine both sets of students. We cannot separate them, and we do not estimate. Full methodology.