2024 Best Documentary Production Master's Degree Schools

If you're seeking a Master's Degree in documentary production, you will have fewer peers than average since the major degree program is the #787 one in the country in terms of popularity.While this may limit the number of schools that offer the degree program, there are still top-quality ones to be found.

In 2024, College Factual analyzed 3 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Documentary Production Master's Degree Schools ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 24 master's degrees in documentary production during the 2020-2021 academic year.

Jump to one of the following sections: * Our Methodology

• Best Master’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Documentary Production School for Your Master's Degree

Your choice of documentary production for getting your master's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:

Overall Quality Is a Must

A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.

Other Factors We Consider

In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:

• Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to documentary production students as compared to other majors.
• Major Demand - The number of documentary production students who choose to seek a master's degree at the school.
• Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
• Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized documentary production related body.

Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for documentary production students working on their master's degree.

One Size Does Not Fit All

The documentary production school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Documentary Production Master's Degree Schools.

Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Documentary Production in the United States

Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a master's degree in documentary production.

Top Schools for a Master's in Documentary Production

1

Northwestern University
Evanston, IL

Master's Degree Highest Degree Type

9 Annual Graduates

Northwestern University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in documentary production. Northwestern is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Evanston.More information about a master’s in documentary production from Northwestern University

2

Chapman University
Orange, CA

Master's Degree Highest Degree Type

4 Annual Graduates

Chapman University is a good decision for individuals pursuing a master's degree in documentary production. Chapman is a large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Orange.More information about a master’s in documentary production from Chapman University

3

University of California - Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA

University of California - Santa Cruz is a wonderful option for individuals pursuing a master's degree in documentary production. UC Santa Cruz is a large public university located in the city of Santa Cruz.More information about a master’s in documentary production from University of California - Santa Cruz

Documentary Production by Region

View the Best Documentary Production Master's Degree Schools for a specific region near you.

Region
Southeast
New England
Rocky Mountains
Plains States
Middle Atlantic
Far Western US
Southwest
Other U.S. Territories
Great Lakes

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Documentary Production Related Rankings by Major

Documentary Production is one of 4 different types of Film, Video & Photographic Arts programs to choose from.

Most Popular Related Majors

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Film & Video Production	854
Film/Cinema/Media Studies	491
Photography	217
Other Film/Video & Photographic Arts	24

Notes and References

• The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
• The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
• Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard). More about our data sources and methodologies.