2024 Best Colleges for Cinematography

SUMMARY

A degree in Cinematography is not only a valuable choice, but generally a requisite first step for scholars choosing to begin a career as a director, a prop master, or a set designer. Interestingly, cinematography is fairly popular ranking as the 84th most popular major. In the last year, there were 4,877 cinematography diplomas received. In-state tuition for cinematography at private colleges is, on average, 4 times more spendy than their public peers.

There are 155 institutions which offer cinematography. This number of universities is on par with other programs offered in the United States. If you are hoping to immerse yourself with other cinematography majors, consider looking at institutions in California which have more students admitted to cinematography than any other state. Zooming out, the best region to major in cinematography is in the Mid East region with CUNY Brooklyn College, New York University, and Temple University best representing the region. Interestingly, our selection for the best conference to study cinematography is the New England Women's & Men's Athletic Conference with Emerson College representing the conference. That being said, our belief is that the best college for cinematography is University of Southern California. You might also want to check out our list of best colleges.

The overall best school does not mean it is the best school for every student. There might be a bunch more facets to consider when choosing institution. External stuff such as campus amenities, transportation services, and food would change your thoughts on where to go to university. At authority.org, we have evaluated the pros and cons for you. If, for example, you are interested in which cinematography school has the best campus, the answer is New York University. If, for example, you are mostly interested in which college boasts the top campus, we have an entire list dedicated to that. We have carefully pored through student reviews, government databases, professor reviews, and more to compare each major in an unbiased and informative way. You can explore our comprehensive list for the schools with the best student life&nbsphere and our selection for the school with the best student life for cinematography is University of Southern California. Are you curious why? Continue reading to find out more about Authority's top recommendations. Some of our picks just might shock you.

If cost is a major influence in your decision on where to go to college, you might consider avoiding University of Southern California. University of Southern California&nbspis the most expensive university for cinematography, at least regarding out of state enrollment. That being said, we have a page for the most expensive&nbspschools that could put the cost of University of Southern California&nbspinto perspective. For more context, you may want to know that cinematography is the 133rd most expensive program in America, with an average cost of $35,200. On a broader scale, the most expensive state for cinematography nationally is Connecticut demonstrated with a cost of $46,790 at the main college in the state Quinnipiac University. To zoom out even further, the most costly region for cinematography is the Far West region which is best demonstrated with California Institute of the Arts with a cost of $50,850, Chapman University with a cost of $54,540, and University of Southern California with a cost of $57,256.

Our cheapest region for cinematography is the Rocky Mountains region which is represented by Montana State University with a cost of $23,890, The University of Montana with a cost of $24,144, and Utah Valley University with a cost of $15,872. More optimistically, the most affordable college for cinematography is Florida State University. Authority's full list of the most affordable schools can be found here.

In-state students can expect to pay in the neighborhood of $9,800 for a degree in cinematography. The price grows dramatically to a median of $22,900 for an out-of-state public-school student. Our pick for the college representing the best value for cinematography: University of Southern California. Through this link you can find our comprehensive list of the schools we see as being the best value&nbspin general. With that said, this list is predicated on the assumption that you are an out-of-state student. A discussion of value changes when in-state tuition is considered, but as we do not know what state(s) you might qualify for in-state tuition, we are approaching this discussion through out-of-state tuition costs.

Earnings for cinematography students can cover a wide range, but within two years finishing the degree graduates will often earn around $48,900. While there is much variation in salary; highest paid earners can bring in up to $89,900. Even straight out of school, the lowest end jobs within the cinematography field earn $26,900, which could be worse. The highest earning graduates for cinematography studied at University of Southern California&nbspand if you want to find the universities with all of the highest earning graduates, we have that too.

The all-around diversity of cinematography ranks solid, falling within the 74th percentile of all programs. The college with the most composite diversity for cinematography is New York University&nbspand here you can find our comprehensive list of the universities which have the most diversity. The financial diversity of the Cinematography major only ranks in the 39th percentile compared to all other majors. Racial diversity is actually above financial diversity, in the 66th percentile. White collegians make up the largest share at 56% of scholars studying cinematography. Additionally, 56% of students pursuing a cinematography degree are men.

The median rating of cinematography professors is 4 stars, which is actually the average score for all majors; this is a fine. If you want to find the most popular cinematography instructor in the country, consider looking up Joseph Daccurso at Los Angeles Valley College. It might come as a shock, but the highest rated professors of cinematography from student rankings are at University of Southern California. As we including data beyond just rankings it becomes clear that the university with the overall best professors for cinematography is New York University. One will find an explanation of our evolving ranking methodology of the best overall professors here, along with many of the finest instructors in the U.S.

Finally, the hardest university to get into for cinematography is University of Southern California. While we do not necessarily see the value in it, we have a general list for the hardest colleges to get into. Although, we do hope you believe that looking at the higher education world through a lens mainly derived from superlatives might cause issues. We encourage you to look at some of our other pages on different colleges and peruse a couple of our insightful background pages on essential details to look for as your university search develops.