SUMMARY
Studying Film is a valuable choice and commonly a necessary first step for students aspiring to begin a career as a film director, a film screenwriter, or a camera operator. In fact, film is fairly common being the 95th most popular area of study. Last year, there were 4,120 film diplomas received. In-state tuition for film at private schools is, on average, 4.3 times more spendy than their public counterparts.
There are 187 colleges which offer film. This number of schools is on par with other majors offered in the United States. If you're looking to immerse yourself with other film majors, look at schools in California which have the most students admitted to film annually. More generally, the best region to major in film is in the Far West region with California State University-Long Beach, University of California-Santa Barbara, and San Francisco State University best representing the region. Interestingly, our pick for the best conference to major in film is the Big West Conference with California State University-Long Beach, University of California-Irvine, and University of California-Santa Barbara representing the conference. Based on our comprehensive list of the best colleges, our selection for the best college for film is Harvard University.
The overall 'best' school is not necessarily the best school for you. There might be a bunch of facets to think about when selecting school. Things such as campus amenities, transportation services, and food would definitely modify your thoughts on where to go to school. Here at Authority, we have evaluated the pros and cons for you. If, for example, you are interested in which film university boasts the top college campus, the winner is Harvard University. If you are very interested in which college boasts the finest campus, then we have a whole page dedicated to that. We have carefully pored through government databases, professor reviews, student reviews, and more in order to compare every U.S. major in an unbiased and informative way. You can explore our well researched list for the universities with the best student life here and, from that list, our selection of the university with the best student life for film is Barnard College. Curious why? Keep scrolling to learn more about our top choices. Many of our decisions might shock you.
If cost is a major factor in your decisions, you might be cautious about University of Chicago. University of Chicago appears to be our most expensive college for film, at least for out of state attendance. We have a list of the most expensive universities that might put the price tag of University of Chicago into perspective. For more context, you might be interested to know that film is the 17th most expensive program in the nation, with an average associated cost of $54,100. To zoom out a little, the most expensive state for film in the nation is Illinois demonstrated by a tuition of $57,642 at the main university in the state University of Chicago. Even more broadly, the most expensive region of the U.S. for film is the New England region which is best demonstrated with Boston College with a cost of $56,780, Amherst College with a cost of $57,640, and Tufts University with a cost of $57,324.
Our cheapest region for film is the Rocky Mountains region which is represented by University of Colorado Boulder with a cost of $34,930, Brigham Young University-Provo with a cost of $5,790, and University of Utah with a cost of $26,017. More optimistically, the most affordable college for film is California State University-Long Beach. Our entire list of the most affordable colleges can be found here.
In-state students can anticipate paying in the neighborhood of $11,500 for a degree in film. That price balloons substantially to an average of $29,300 for the out-of-state public-school student. As such, you might be interested in our choice for the university constituting the best value for film: Harvard University. Through this link you can see our comprehensive list on the universities we believe to be the best value in general. That being said, this section 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 we do not know in which states any one student has residency.
Earnings for film students can cover a wide range, but two years after leaving college graduates will often earn around $48,900. While there is much variation in pay; top earners can experience pay up to $89,700. Right out of college, the minimum earning jobs within the film field make $26,900, which could be worse. The highest earning grads for film graduated from University of Pennsylvania and if you are looking for schools with all of the highest earning graduates, we have that too.
The all-around diversity of film stands quite high, ranking in the 89th percentile of all majors. The university with the most composite diversity for film is Yale University and here you can find our general list for the colleges which have the most diversity. The overall financial diversity of Film ranks only in the 57th percentile of all majors. Racial diversity is actually above financial diversity, ranking in the 79th percentile. White undergraduates compose the largest proportion at 53% of students studying film. Additionally, 52% of scholars seeking a film degree are men.
The median ranking for film's professors is 3.9 stars, a ranking that is 2% below the median score across every major; which is a subpar score. If you want the most popular film professor in the country, consider looking up Greg Smersh at University of South Florida-Main Campus. It may be surprising, but the highest rated film instructors according to students come from American University. If we consider data other than basic rankings it becomes clear that the school possessing comprehensively the best instructors for film is Harvard University. One will find an explanation of our ever evolving ranking methodology of the best overall professors here, as well as many of the finest examples of professors in the U.S.
Finally, the hardest college to get into for film is Harvard University. While we are unsure why you would be interested, we have an extensive page of the hardest colleges to get into. That being said, we do hope you understand that approaching university with context mainly informed by superlatives can cause issues. We at Authority hope you look at some of our more nuanced pages on different schools and explore some of Authority's helpful background pages on beneficial things to think about as your school search develops.