Public Relations, Advertising, and Applied Communication at Drury University-College of Continuing Professional Studies

Starting salaries around $34,000 put Drury's continuing education PR and communications program roughly $4,000 below Missouri's median and nearly $6,000 behind the national average. While the program falls in the 16th percentile nationally, it actually performs closer to middle-of-the-pack within Missouri (40th percentile), where several larger state universities dominate the top spots with first-year earnings in the $39,000-$42,000 range. The debt load of $23,250 is slightly below both state and national medians, which keeps the financial picture from being worse than it already is.

The real concern here is earning power. A debt-to-earnings ratio of 0.69 means graduates are borrowing about two-thirds of their first year's salary—manageable in theory, but tight when that salary barely cracks $34,000 in a field where stronger programs routinely produce $40,000+ outcomes. The institution's high Pell grant percentage (59%) suggests this program may serve students with fewer financial resources, making that earnings gap more consequential.

Important caveat: this data reflects fewer than 30 graduates, so a few individual outcomes could skew these numbers significantly. If you're considering this program, the small sample size means you should dig deeper into job placement specifics and whether the continuing education format offers the networking and internship access that drives better outcomes at Missouri State or Webster. At these earnings levels, every dollar of starting salary matters for loan repayment.