MS Journalism

Name: MS Journalism
Price: 25920000 LKR
Availability: InStock

Columbia Graduate School of Journalism

Duration 10 Months Full-time, accelerated

Intake August 2026 Cycle

Tuition (Est.) LKR 25,920k Per Year

Deadline January 15 (Round 1) // VERIFY Priority Date

Course Overview

Columbia Graduate School of Journalism awards the Pulitzer Prize and is universally regarded as the world's most prestigious journalism school. The 10-month MS Journalism is built around the Reporting class — a year-long immersion in shoe-leather reporting in NYC's five boroughs under faculty like Pulitzer winners Sheila Coronel, Andie Tucher, and former NYT and ProPublica editors. The programme then specialises across Newspaper, Magazine, Broadcast (TV/Audio), Digital Media, and Investigative Reporting tracks. Students publish in The New York Times, ProPublica, The Atlantic, and Bloomberg via Columbia's J-School Reporting partnership.

Sri Lankan applicants — typically working journalists with 2-5 years of newsroom experience at the Sunday Times, Daily News, BBC Sinhala / Tamil, Reuters Colombo, or Al Jazeera English — choose Columbia for the brand, the NYC industry adjacency, and the South Asian Journalism Fellowship (separately funded). Recent Sri Lankan / South Asian Columbia J-School alumni have moved into staff posts at the FT, WSJ, ProPublica, plus Reuters foreign-correspondent roles. The MS is also a Fulbright target programme.

Entry Requirements

description

Academic

check_circle Bachelor's degree from a recognised Sri Lankan university — minimum GPA 3.3+ (Second Class Upper).
check_circle Application includes a 600-word personal statement, a 600-word autobiographical essay, and a writing test (administered by Columbia during the application window).
check_circle Portfolio of 3-5 published clips (print, digital, broadcast, or photojournalism — quality over quantity).
check_circle Three letters of recommendation (academic and / or professional).
check_circle Working journalism experience is preferred — most successful applicants have 1-5 years in newsrooms.

translate

English Proficiency

check_circle TOEFL iBT: 114 Overall (min 28 in each section) — one of the highest in US graduate admissions.
check_circle IELTS Academic: 7.5 Overall (min 7.5 in each band).
check_circle Duolingo: 130 Overall.
check_circle Waived only if your Bachelor's was conducted in English at a primarily English-speaking country university.

Estimated Cost of Study

Expense Category	Amount (USD)	Approx. LKR
Tuition Fee (full programme)	USD 81,000	Rs. 25,920,000
Health Insurance & Fees	USD 5,200	Rs. 1,664,000
Living Expenses (10 months, NYC)	USD 30,000	Rs. 9,600,000
F-1 Visa & SEVIS	USD 700	Rs. 224,000
Total Programme Investment	USD 116,900	Rs. 37,408,000

*LKR conversion based on current bank rates. Subject to change.

Career Outcomes & PR

Eligible for 1-year OPT (Optional Practical Training). Top placements: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, ProPublica, Bloomberg, Reuters, AP, AFP, BBC, NPR, plus magazine outlets like The Atlantic, New Yorker, Wired. Columbia J-School also feeds investigative non-profits (ICIJ, OCCRP). US starting reporter salary: USD 50,000-75,000; major-newspaper trainee posts USD 65,000-85,000.

Pulitzer School

10 Months Accelerated

OPT Post-Study Work

Fulbright Target