Communication and Media Studies at Hollins University

Similar communications programs in Virginia suggest first-year earnings around $36,200—close to the state median but well below what graduates from UVA, Virginia Tech, and James Madison typically command. The estimated $26,500 in debt means you'd be looking at roughly 70% of first-year income owed, which sits right at the threshold where media studies degrees become harder to justify financially.

The challenge here is that communications is an especially outcomes-dependent field where internships, portfolio work, and career services make an enormous difference. With actual graduate data suppressed due to small sample sizes, there's no way to know if Hollins's particular program produces outcomes closer to the Virginia median or if it's an outlier. That $11,000 gap between the typical Virginia graduate and top programs like UVA represents real money—nearly a third of your estimated starting salary.

Given the uncertainty and the roughly $5,000 premium in debt compared to what communications graduates at other Virginia schools typically carry, you're essentially betting on a program with no track record you can verify. If your child is set on communications at a smaller school, getting concrete placement data directly from Hollins's career services—where graduates actually land jobs, which media markets they enter—becomes critical before committing to this debt level.