College Scorecard · cost, debt & earnings

Emerson College

Boston, MA · Private nonprofit · Bachelor-granting · 3,870 undergrads · 51% admitted

Do students finish?

77% complete

Most students who start here finish.

What does it cost?

$80,399/yr net

Average annual price after grants & scholarships. ~$321,596 over four years if you finish on time.

What former students go on to earn

The middle 50% of students who received federal aid, measured 10 years after they entered (an earlier entering class — not a guarantee, and not limited to those who graduated). Earnings vary enormously by field of study.

$62,832 median, 10 yrs after entry

25th pct $33,763 median $62,832 75th pct $89,059

73% earn more than a typical high-school graduate (the dashed line above, $28,000 — a fixed, somewhat dated federal benchmark) ten years on.

Your major matters more than your school

The school-wide figure above blends every major together — but pay varies enormously by program. Pick a degree level (and search your major) to compare like-for-like.

Read these on their own terms. Program pay is measured 1 year after completing the program (early career, graduates only) — not the same as the school-wide number above, which is 10 years after a student first enrolled. Don't compare a program figure to the school figure; use the programs to compare majors to each other.

8 Bachelor's programs · $22,766 to $44,510 (1 yr out)

MajorPay · 1yr outMedian debt

Marketing.Bachelor's $44,510 $21,500

Public Relations, Advertising, and Applied Communication.Bachelor's $42,632 $23,719

Journalism.Bachelor's $38,675 $23,610

Communication and Media Studies.Bachelor's $38,439 $23,717

Radio, Television, and Digital Communication.Bachelor's $31,236 —

Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies.Bachelor's $30,525 $23,776

Film/Video and Photographic Arts.Bachelor's $28,409 $23,250

Drama/Theatre Arts and Stagecraft.Bachelor's $22,766 $25,000

The Dept. of Education omits programs with too few graduates (to protect privacy), so not every major appears. Pay is a median for federally-aided graduates. Full program detail on the official Scorecard.

Typical federal loan debt

$19,000

≈ 30% of one year's typical earnings here

This counts federal student loans only — not private loans, Parent PLUS loans, or family savings, so the true cost of borrowing is usually higher.

What these numbers are — and are not

Every figure here is an institution-wide median from the U.S. Dept. of Education College Scorecard. It is not a prediction of what you would earn or owe — a computer-science and a fine-arts graduate of the same school can earn wildly different amounts, and your field of study matters more than your school. It is not a figure for any one program, not proof the school caused the outcome (selective schools admit students who would earn more anyway), and not a "best college" ranking. Earnings and debt cover federally-aided students.

→ The number that actually answers "worth it" is earnings by major — see the by-major breakdown above (14 programs at this school).

Also available: structured data (JSON-LD) · plain text · JSON. Source: U.S. Dept. of Education College Scorecard (2026-06-10 release). · school website