Press and media relations
Press releases, enquiries, the spokesperson role, crisis cases. Reactive and tied to news cycles, highly visible to the outside and hard to plan hour by hour.
Study communications alongside your job
You write press releases, run channels or hold internal communication together, only the degree is missing. The programme adds strategy, method and formal proof, and your vocational training often shortens the way considerably.
Where it fits
What communications and PR is, and what it is not
Three fields get thrown together constantly, and that leads to the wrong choice.
Communications programmes ask how an organisation speaks to its publics: to media, staff, customers, politics and neighbours. Typical content is communication strategy, press and media relations, internal communication, crisis communication, media law and, increasingly, digital channels. Corporate communications is the umbrella term, PR is one part of it.
The three distinctions that come up in almost every initial consultation:
- PR versus marketing: marketing aims at sales and addresses customers directly. PR aims at relationships and reputation and often speaks through third parties. In practice that blurs, especially around content. If you want the revenue craft, business administration serves you better.
- PR versus journalism: journalism works on a public mandate and is committed to the subject, PR works for an organisation and represents its interest. Same tools, different role. If you want the newsroom, you need a traineeship and editorial practice, not a PR degree.
- Communications versus media: media programmes ask how content is produced and distributed. Communications asks what gets said, by whom and to what end.
And the honest limit: job titles in this industry are not protected. There is no chamber, no licence, no examination board that makes you a press officer. The degree is required where positions are advertised formally, that is, in the public sector, in large organisations and at associations. In agencies, work samples and references often carry more weight. The degree is a door opener, not a licence to practise.
Admission
Without an Abitur too, usually via the commercial route
Communications is a classic field for career changers, and that makes access easier.
Completed vocational training plus a few years of work experience opens university access for a subject-related degree. These are the common feeder occupations:
- Marketing communication and dialogue marketing clerks: the most direct route, undisputed in subject terms and strong on credit transfer.
- Event and media clerks: close to the practice of external communication, a good bridge into campaign and event work.
- Commercial training with communication duties in daily work: counts in subject terms if you document the work properly, through references and role descriptions.
If you also hold a Fachwirt in marketing or communications or a comparable advanced qualification, you often have general university entrance and a free choice of subject. The three usual routes are set out under studying without Abitur.
A practical note: collect your evidence before you apply. References with concrete role descriptions, certificates from continuing education, proof of project responsibility. Those documents decide the credit question later, and whoever hunts for them in the application month gives away points. How to make prior learning visible is set out under your degree on your CV.
Credit transfer
What your training is worth
Commercial foundations are well documented, and they sit at the start of the programme.
Regulated commercial training is a formal qualification with documented learning outcomes. In communications programmes it often maps onto the business foundation modules that fall in the first semesters. A Fachwirt qualification adds further points, and relevant years on the job count on top. For learning acquired outside higher education, a ceiling of 50 percent of a programme's ECTS usually applies.
The arithmetic makes it concrete. A bachelor's degree comes to 180 ECTS. If 50 of them are credited, 130 remain. At 10 ECTS per semester, which is realistic next to a full-time job, that is six and a half years instead of nine. You changed nothing about your working day and saved two and a half years.
The order matters: settle the credit question first, choose the university second. With identical prior learning the differences between providers are substantial. How the procedure works, and how blanket and individual credit transfer differ, is explained under credit transfer and credit for work experience.
Workload
Time and cost, realistically
Communications work is reactive, and your semester load has to allow for that.
| ECTS per semester | Hours per week | In everyday life | Bachelor takes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | around 7 to 8 | one free evening plus half a day | 18 years, only sensible for single modules |
| 10 | around 15 | two evenings plus one free day, survives a turbulent week | 9 years, 6.5 with credit transfer |
| 15 | around 22 | workable unless you regularly step into crisis situations | 6 years, around 4.5 with credit transfer |
| 20 | around 30 | effectively a second part-time job, hard to hold with on-call duty | 4.5 years |
Calculated with 30 hours per ECTS and around 20 active weeks per semester. How to work out your own number is explained under ECTS per semester.
On cost, part-time bachelor programmes usually sit in the range of a few hundred euros per month. What decides is the total at a realistic pace, not the monthly rate, and that total falls above all through credit transfer. The detail is under what a distance degree costs.
Which university offers which communications programme is best compared with sourced data in the Hochschulnavigator. And because communications departments gain from a formally qualified team, the conversation about a contribution is worth having, see getting your employer to pay. Watch out for repayment clauses, they typically tie you in for several years.
Afterwards
Where the degree leads
Three directions that differ clearly in daily work and in what they demand.
Internal communication
Staff communication, change processes, supporting managers. More predictable than press work, but politically demanding and close to the executive level.
Communications management
Strategy, budget, agency steering, measuring impact. Less writing yourself, more deciding. The route the degree qualifies you for most clearly.
An honest word on salary: the spread in this industry is wide, and it depends less on the degree than on organisation size, sector and scope of responsibility. Agency work rarely pays well at the start, while positions in large companies and in the public sector follow fixed pay structures in which the degree affects your grade. The step comes with the role, not with the certificate. More on that under salary after your degree.
Common questions
Communications and PR by distance learning
The questions that come up in almost every initial consultation.
What is the difference between PR and marketing?
Marketing aims at sales and addresses customers directly. PR aims at relationships and reputation and often speaks through third parties such as newsrooms, associations or politics. In practice the lines blur, especially around content. For your choice of subject the deciding question stays the same: do you want to influence revenue or build trust.
Will this degree make me a journalist?
No. Journalism works on a public mandate and is committed to the subject, PR works on behalf of an organisation and represents its interest. The tools overlap, the role does not. A communications degree prepares you for the client side, while a traineeship and newsroom practice remain the usual route into journalism.
Can I study communications without an Abitur?
As a rule yes. Completed commercial or media-related vocational training plus several years of work experience opens access to a subject-related degree. An advanced qualification such as the Fachwirt in marketing or communications often adds general university entrance.
How much of my training will be credited?
That depends on the university and the differences are substantial. Regulated commercial training often covers the business foundation modules, a Fachwirt qualification adds further points, and relevant years on the job count on top. For learning acquired outside higher education, a ceiling of 50 percent of a programme's ECTS usually applies.
Do I need a degree to work in press relations?
Legally no. Job titles in this industry are not protected, there is no chamber and no licence. In practice the degree is required wherever positions are advertised formally: in the public sector, in large organisations and at associations. In agencies, work samples and references often carry more weight.
Next step
What is actually possible in your case
Admission, credit transfer and the right programme settled in one conversation.
Levels in this subject
Which level fits your goal?
The same subject, two different answers. Each level has its own admission routes and leads somewhere else.
Bachelor part-time
Access through training, credit transfer worked through
Master part-time
Which bachelor is required, entering from another field
Information Notice
The information on this page is general in nature and based on my advisory practice (last updated 31.07.2026). It does not replace an official credit transfer or recognition decision by the respective university and is not legal advice. Specific decisions are made by universities, the ZAB (Germany), the BMBWF (Austria), or the SBFI (Switzerland). I clarify binding next steps with you in the initial consultation.