undergradly.
Major · Business, Management & Marketing

The narrative engine inside every Fortune 500 organization

Business and Corporate Communications trains students to write and edit the messages organizations use to manage reputation, disclose information, and steer change — internal memos, executive statements, investor materials, crisis briefings. About 540 degrees are awarded annually across 56 colleges, making it a small but recognizable specialty inside business schools.

Schools offering
56
Annual completions
540
Typical degree level
Associate's + Bachelor's
Median earnings (5yr)
$62k

About this major

Business and Corporate Communications trains students to produce the writing organizations rely on to manage their reputation, communicate with investors, and steer employees through change. The CIP definition frames it plainly — preparation to compose, edit, and proofread business and business-related communications — and the curriculum reflects that scope. Coursework moves through media writing, AP style, and editing fundamentals, then layers in financial-disclosure language, crisis-response frameworks, executive-communication conventions, and the business-school basics (organizational behavior, marketing principles, accounting literacy) that distinguish this major from the journalism-side communication CIPs.

The major attracts students who want to write professionally but inside organizations rather than newsrooms. Strong readers and clear writers tend to do well, especially those comfortable translating technical or financial material into plain language. The work rewards people who notice tone, who can hold multiple stakeholder audiences in their head at once, and who do not mind serving someone else’s message — most corporate-communications writing carries an executive or institutional byline rather than a personal one.

Scale gives the major its character. About 540 degrees are awarded each year across 56 colleges, and most completions are bachelor’s-level — there are no associate’s completions in the top ten institutions, with CUNY Baruch (189), Chapman (71), and Central Michigan (31) leading the pipeline. Five-year median earnings for bachelor’s completers run about $61,960. The dominant destination is public relations specialist at a $69,780 median wage, with public relations managers reaching $138,520 at mid-career. The low completion count partly reflects administrative grouping — many universities roll these students into broader Communication, General or Public Relations programs in their reporting.

Section 3 · Careers

Where this major leads

Occupations most often associated with this major, from the federal BLS+O*NET crosswalk. Job-growth projections and median wages are national.

Occupation Median wage Job growth Typical education
Public relations specialists $70k +4.8% Bachelor's degree
Writers and authors $72k +3.6% Bachelor's degree
Editors $75k +0.6% Bachelor's degree
Business teachers, postsecondary $97k +5.7% Doctoral or professional degree
Public relations managers $139k +5.0% Bachelor's degree
Technical writers $92k +0.9% Bachelor's degree
Communications teachers, postsecondary $78k +2.1% Doctoral or professional degree
Proofreaders and copy markers $49k -0.6% Bachelor's degree
Section 4 · Earnings

Earnings at a glance

Median graduate earnings from the federal College Scorecard, 5 and 10 years out.

Median 5-year earnings

$62k

Who this major is for

You may thrive here if you are a strong writer who is more interested in shaping institutional messages than in chasing a personal byline, if you can hold the tone of a CFO and the tone of a frontline employee in your head at the same time, if numbers in a 10-K or proxy filing read as material rather than alien, if you find the mechanics of crisis response and reputation management genuinely interesting rather than cynical, and if a $69,780 starting median at the public relations specialist level looks like a reasonable runway toward the $138,520 PR-manager ceiling at mid-career.

Think twice if your real interest is investigative journalism or independent writing — Journalism (CIP 09.0401) and Mass Communication/Media Studies (CIP 09.0102) are closer to that, and the work rhythm differs sharply. Reconsider this route if you are not comfortable serving someone else’s message: corporate communications is institutional writing, with executive or company bylines and approval chains. Recognize too that generative AI has compressed the entry-level boilerplate work, so a graduate competing only on writing speed without a substantive lane — investor relations, crisis, regulated industries, internal change — will face a tougher first hire than this major produced five years ago.

The small annual completion count (540) reflects administrative grouping more than market scarcity, but it does mean alumni networks are thinner than at the larger 09.xx public-relations programs.

Section 6 · Where to study

Top colleges for Business/Corporate Communications, General

Ranked by annual completions at the associate's or bachelor's level — a proxy for program scale.

College Location Assoc. Bach. Total
CUNY Bernard M Baruch College New York, NY 0 189 189
Chapman University Orange, CA 0 71 71
Central Michigan University Mount Pleasant, MI 0 31 31
Marquette University Milwaukee, WI 0 30 30
Pennsylvania State University-Penn State Abington Abington, PA 0 29 29
Stevenson University Owings Mills, MD 0 28 28
Bentley University Waltham, MA 0 22 22
National University San Diego, CA 0 12 12
Lycoming College Williamsport, PA 0 12 12
Stephen F Austin State University Nacogdoches, TX 0 11 11
Section 7 · Explore sideways

Related majors to explore

Business/Commerce, General

42,906 completions/yr

Speech Communication and Rhetoric

29,295 completions/yr

Communication, General

9,537 completions/yr

Journalism

8,274 completions/yr

Mass Communication/Media Studies

6,797 completions/yr

Creative Writing

3,403 completions/yr

Public Relations/Image Management

3,305 completions/yr

Public Relations, Advertising, and Applied Communication

2,997 completions/yr
Section 9 · Frequently asked

Common questions

What do Business/Corporate Communications majors actually study day-to-day?
Coursework centers on writing, editing, and proofreading the documents organizations rely on to function — press releases, executive statements, investor letters, internal memos, change-management announcements, and crisis briefings. Programs typically pair business-school fundamentals (accounting basics, organizational behavior, marketing principles) with communication theory, media writing, and applied PR/IR practice. Expect heavy emphasis on AP style, financial-disclosure language, and audience analysis. The curriculum is more applied than the journalism-side communication majors and more writing-intensive than a general business or marketing degree.
Do I need a bachelor’s, or is an associate’s enough for Corporate Communications?
Both degree levels appear in IPEDS for this CIP, but the bachelor’s is the working credential. Five-year median earnings for bachelor’s completers run about $61,960, and every primary career destination — public relations specialist ($69,780 median), writer/author ($72,270), editor ($75,260), public relations manager ($138,520) — lists a bachelor’s as the typical entry education in the BLS data. An associate’s can support communications-coordinator or marketing-assistant roles but rarely opens the in-house corporate-comms or agency PR pipeline that drives this major’s ROI.
What kinds of jobs do Business/Corporate Communications graduates end up in?
The most common entry destination is public relations specialist at a $69,780 median wage with 4.8% projected growth — a category that absorbs in-house corporate-comms associates as well as agency-side account staff at firms like Edelman, Weber Shandwick, and FleishmanHillard. Writers and authors ($72,270 median) and editors ($75,260 median) capture the production side. Public relations managers ($138,520 median, 5% growth) is the mid-career destination after roughly seven to ten years, including in-house communications directors, IR officers, and crisis leads at public companies. Technical writers ($91,670) sit adjacent for graduates who pivot toward documentation work in regulated industries.
How does this major differ from Public Relations or general Communication?
It lives in the business-school CIP family (52.xx) rather than the journalism/communication family (09.xx), and that placement is the biggest signal. Public Relations/Image Management (09.0902, ~3,305 completions) and the broader Public Relations, Advertising, and Applied Communication major (09.0900, ~2,997 completions) sit inside communication schools and weight more toward agency, campaign, and media-relations work. Communication, General (09.0100, ~9,537 completions) and Speech Communication and Rhetoric (09.0101, ~29,295 completions) are broader liberal-arts options. This major leans further into the business context — financial disclosure, executive communication, internal change management — and is typically taken alongside business-school core requirements.
How is generative AI changing entry-level corporate communications work?
The market is repricing the parts of this work that were already templated — boilerplate press releases, standard social copy, first-draft FAQs. Entry roles still exist but increasingly require judgment in addition to writing speed. The lanes that have held up best are crisis communications (real-time decisions under regulatory and reputational risk), investor relations (10-K, 10-Q, and proxy disclosure work plus Reg FD compliance), executive ghostwriting at the C-suite level, and regulated-industry comms in pharma, financial services, and healthcare. A communications graduate who pairs writing fluency with one of those domains is competing on judgment, not draft volume.
What credentials help after the degree?
Three matter. The Public Relations Society of America’s Accredited in Public Relations (APR) is the most recognized professional credential and typically pursued after about five years of practice. The International Association of Business Communicators offers the Communication Management Professional and Strategic Communication Management Professional sequence aimed at internal-comms practitioners. For students targeting investor relations, the National Investor Relations Institute’s Investor Relations Charter (IRC) is the relevant designation. None of these are required to enter the field, but they tend to map to mid-career promotions and lateral moves into specialized lanes.