Editorial Methodology

We currently list 175 programs at 108 schools and record 38 related offerings we checked and did not list (shown on each school page with the reason). Coverage is partial, differs by country and is growing: a program missing from the directory has not been verified yet. See also the rankings methodology, data sources and verification and sponsorship disclosure.

Which degrees are eligible

The awarded qualification and the official program identity decide eligibility — not a school's name. “Animation school” in a name is not evidence. The directory covers ten countries (United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain) and any teaching language; the site itself is written in English.

Every listed program carries an eligibility record: official program name, awarded qualification wording, level, exact award, decision, explanation and the official page that shows it. A deterministic gate checks every research decision and can only make it stricter; unclear cases go to an editor instead of being published.

Dedicated degree, pathway or broader degree. A dedicated degree is awarded in animation itself. A pathway is an officially named concentration, major or track inside another degree. A broader degree is a design, art or media degree whose official curriculum substantially covers animation; one elective is never enough. The role is shown on every program and the three are never merged.

How programs are classified

• Level and award are separate: we show the exact award as the school and its national system title it (BA, BA (Hons), BFA, Licence, Grado, Diplom, Master, MFA, MRes, PhD…). We never call every master's an MFA, and we never present a research doctorate as production training.
• Qualification classification. A qualification is either an academic degree (titled as a bachelor's, master's or doctoral degree in its own system) or a degree-equivalent qualification (a differently titled qualification that official sources place in a degree cycle, for example a national diploma). Differently titled qualifications keep their own official title and are not relabeled as a bachelor's or master's. The classification is sourced from the official framework or register the school or its ministry publishes.
• Specializations. Each program belongs to one or more animation specializations — general animation, 2D, 3D, character animation, computer animation, stop-motion, animation filmmaking, visual effects, technical animation and animation studies — with a role (dedicated, pathway or broader). A program can appear in several specializations without duplicate records.
• Teaching language is recorded per program as the school states it; a program may be taught in more than one language. Listing a program does not imply that instruction is available in English.
• Delivery, attendance and intensity are independent. Delivery is on campus, online or hybrid. Attendance is no required campus attendance (verified), limited campus visits, low-residency, regular campus attendance, or not verified. Part-time study is an intensity, not a format. “Fully online” appears only when the school states that no campus attendance is required.
• Entry and application routes (first-year, transfer, direct application to the school, national or central application systems, portfolio-based admission) are recorded when the school publishes them.

How recognition is verified

Recognition is not one thing, and we never merge these levels into a single claim:

• Institution recognition — the institution is recognized or licensed by the competent national or regional authority, taken from the official register or the school's accreditation page.
• Degree-awarding authority — the institution holds the legal power to award the qualification, or the award is conferred by a parent or partner institution (shown separately).
• Program accreditation — a program-level accreditation or validation, recorded for the specific program only. One department's accreditation is never transferred to another program, and institutional recognition is never presented as program accreditation.
• National qualification level — the level the qualification holds in its national framework, when an official source states it.
• Marketing statements — “industry-recognized”, “world-class” and similar are not recognition and are not recorded as such.

Professional or industry memberships and partnerships are not accreditation and are not shown as accreditation. Where no official source is found, recognition is shown as not verified rather than inferred.

Admissions and portfolios

Every submission item is recorded on its own — portfolio, showreel, drawing samples, animation samples, creative task, written work, research proposal — with a status: required, optional, pathway-specific, or explicitly not required. If a school does not publish a portfolio policy, we say “not published”; we never infer “no portfolio required” from silence. Deadlines keep the year and intake the school printed; a past deadline is marked passed and never rolled forward.

Tuition, fees and equipment costs

Every amount is shown with its currency (USD, CAD, AUD, GBP, NZD or EUR) and is never converted silently or compared across currencies. Tuition keeps its applicant category (for example domestic, international, EU/EEA), eligibility rule, basis (per credit, per semester, per year, whole program) and academic year. Figures on different bases are never compared. Mandatory institutional fees and program equipment and software costs — computer requirements, tablets, software subscriptions, lab and studio fees, travel and residencies — are stored separately. We do not imply that tuition includes hardware, software or project budgets, and we never compute a total cost when key expenses are unpublished. Any estimate is labeled as such with its assumptions.

Funding classification

“Fully funded” requires verified statements of tuition coverage and a stipend for admitted students for the normal program length — guaranteed, or subject to published conditions. Each component (tuition, stipend, years, fees, health insurance, duties, renewal) is a separate sourced fact. Competitive assistantships, tuition-only support, partial scholarships and project grants are shown separately and never called full funding. Fully funded does not mean every personal or equipment expense is covered. Funding amounts keep their own currency and are never compared across currencies.

Verification

Every published fact stores the official URL it came from and a verbatim quote from that page. An automated check re-fetches the page and searches for the quote; a fact whose quote is not found is stored but never shown. Editors can confirm a fact manually after reading the source. Each fact shows its source and verification date. Details: data sources and verification.

What we do not claim

• Evidence limits: we rely on public official pages; some national registers and school sites are in other languages or block automated checks, so a missing fact means not verified, not absent. We do not claim complete coverage of any country.
• No acceptance rates, selectivity, prestige, placement rates, salaries, student satisfaction figures, alumni credits, festival awards, studio partnerships or industry connections.
• No first-hand school visits or interviews.
• A faculty list shows who the program listed on the date we checked — not who teaches or supervises in a given year.
• Campus resources are not assumed to be available to online students unless the school says so.
• Listing is not an endorsement, and a school's absence is not a judgment. Requirements, costs and deadlines change: confirm with the school.

Corrections

Schools and readers can suggest an update with an official source. Corrections are reviewed against official pages; nobody can edit a profile directly, and sponsorship never changes facts, verification status or editorial selections.