Public Relations, Advertising, and Applied Communication at Franklin College

Franklin College's communications program graduates start at $36,964—below both the state median ($38,860) and national median ($39,794), landing in the 40th percentile among Indiana programs. That puts it behind not just prestigious programs like Butler and Ball State, but also regional competitors like University of Southern Indiana. For a program at a small private college charging enough to leave students with $27,000 in debt, these earnings fall short of what families might expect.

The debt burden itself isn't alarming compared to similar programs nationwide—actually ranking in just the 5th percentile—but context matters. With a 0.73 debt-to-earnings ratio, graduates will face nearly three-quarters of their first-year salary in loan obligations. In a field where starting salaries already skew modest and career advancement often depends on networking and unpaid internships, that financial pressure can limit opportunities early on.

The small sample size here is crucial. With fewer than 30 graduates in this dataset, a few outliers could be dragging down or propping up these numbers significantly. If your child is seriously considering Franklin's program, they should ask the college for more detailed placement data and talk to recent alumni about their career paths. The numbers suggest Franklin's communications program struggles to compete with peers in Indiana, but with such limited data, it's worth investigating whether that pattern holds consistently across graduating classes.