Educational/Instructional Media Design at Mississippi State University

Mississippi State's Educational/Instructional Media Design program shows unusually favorable debt numbers—$29,500 versus a national median of nearly $38,000—making it $8,000 cheaper to complete than the typical program in this field. First-year earnings of $40,786 match the national median exactly, placing graduates at the 95th percentile nationally. The 0.72 debt-to-earnings ratio means graduates earn roughly $1.40 for every dollar borrowed, a workable starting point for recent graduates entering the instructional design field.

The catch? This is Mississippi's only program in this specialty, and the sample size is extremely small—under 30 graduates. That means these numbers could shift dramatically year to year as the cohort changes. The 60th percentile ranking within Mississippi is less meaningful since there's no actual in-state competition for comparison. What we can say is that Mississippi State manages to prepare instructional designers at a significantly lower debt burden than programs elsewhere, likely due to in-state tuition advantages at a public university.

For families considering this niche field, the financial fundamentals work: reasonable debt, immediate earnings that match national standards, and a specialized degree from an established university. Just understand you're looking at preliminary data from a small program. If your student is certain about instructional design as a career path, this represents an affordable entry point into the field.