If you pursue a degree in music performance, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #116 most popular program in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
College Factual reviewed 173 schools in the United States to determine which ones were the best for degree seekers in the field of music performance. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 7,281 degrees in music performance annually.
Earn the music business degree that fits into the business world – and partners Southern New Hampshire University with world-renowned Berklee College of Music.
Your choice of music performance school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Music Performance School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
You may want to choose one of the degree levels below to find the schools of most interest to you.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Music Performance Schools ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
If you'd like to restrict your choices to just one part of the country, you can filter this list by location.
In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat.
Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.
Earn the music business degree that fits into the business world – and partners Southern New Hampshire University with world-renowned Berklee College of Music.
Best Schools for Music Performance in the United States
Although we recommend filtering by degree level first, you can view the list below to see which schools give the educational experience for the music performance degree levels they offer. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
Northwestern University is a wonderful option for students pursuing a degree in music performance. Northwestern is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Evanston. A Best Colleges rank of #5 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means Northwestern is a great university overall.
There were about 40 music performance students who graduated with this degree at Northwestern in the most recent year we have data available.
It's difficult to beat University of Michigan - Ann Arbor if you want to pursue a degree in music performance. U-M is a very large public university located in the city of Ann Arbor. A Best Colleges rank of #22 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means U-M is a great university overall.
There were about 127 music performance students who graduated with this degree at U-M in the most recent year we have data available.
Earn the music business degree that fits into the business world – and partners Southern New Hampshire University with world-renowned Berklee College of Music.
It is difficult to beat New York University if you wish to pursue a degree in music performance. Located in the city of New York, NYU is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #16 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means NYU is a great university overall.
There were approximately 135 music performance students who graduated with this degree at NYU in the most recent year we have data available.
University of Southern California is a great decision for students interested in a degree in music performance. USC is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Los Angeles. A Best Colleges rank of #13 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means USC is a great university overall.
There were about 52 music performance students who graduated with this degree at USC in the most recent data year.
Boston U is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Boston. A Best Colleges rank of #23 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means Boston U is a great university overall.
There were approximately 98 music performance students who graduated with this degree at Boston U in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the small city of East Lansing, Michigan State is a public university with a very large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #54 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means Michigan State is a great university overall.
There were approximately 89 music performance students who graduated with this degree at Michigan State in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the large city of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #8 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means Carnegie Mellon is a great university overall.
There were about 62 music performance students who graduated with this degree at Carnegie Mellon in the most recent year we have data available.
Johns Hopkins is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Baltimore. A Best Colleges rank of #6 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means Johns Hopkins is a great university overall.
There were approximately 175 music performance students who graduated with this degree at Johns Hopkins in the most recent data year.
Located in the city of Rochester, University of Rochester is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. This university ranks 8th out of 136 schools for overall quality in the state of New York.
There were approximately 172 music performance students who graduated with this degree at University of Rochester in the most recent year we have data available.
IU Bloomington is a fairly large public university located in the small city of Bloomington. A Best Colleges rank of #30 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means IU Bloomington is a great university overall.
There were roughly 293 music performance students who graduated with this degree at IU Bloomington in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the large city of Fort Worth, TCU is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. This university ranks 4th out of 115 schools for overall quality in the state of Texas.
There were approximately 15 music performance students who graduated with this degree at TCU in the most recent data year.
Located in the city of Austin, UT Austin is a public university with a fairly large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #46 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means UT Austin is a great university overall.
There were roughly 25 music performance students who graduated with this degree at UT Austin in the most recent data year.
Belmont is a medium-sized private not-for-profit university located in the city of Nashville. This university ranks 3rd out of 41 colleges for overall quality in the state of Tennessee.
There were roughly 15 music performance students who graduated with this degree at Belmont in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the city of Los Angeles, UCLA is a public university with a fairly large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #28 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means UCLA is a great university overall.
There were about 29 music performance students who graduated with this degree at UCLA in the most recent data year.
U Miami is a large private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Coral Gables. This university ranks 6th out of 70 schools for overall quality in the state of Florida.
There were about 49 music performance students who graduated with this degree at U Miami in the most recent data year.
Ithaca is a small private not-for-profit college located in the small suburb of Ithaca. This college ranks 23rd out of 136 colleges for overall quality in the state of New York.
There were about 26 music performance students who graduated with this degree at Ithaca in the most recent data year.
Located in the large city of Washington, CUA is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population. This university ranks 4th out of 7 colleges for overall quality in the state of District of Columbia.
There were approximately 11 music performance students who graduated with this degree at CUA in the most recent year we have data available.
Messiah is a small private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of Mechanicsburg. This university ranks 40th out of 103 schools for overall quality in the state of Pennsylvania.
There were roughly 40 music performance students who graduated with this degree at Messiah in the most recent data year.
New School University is a medium-sized private not-for-profit school located in the large city of New York. This school ranks 22nd out of 136 schools for overall quality in the state of New York.
There were roughly 50 music performance students who graduated with this degree at New School University in the most recent data year.
Syracuse is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Syracuse. This university ranks 5th out of 136 schools for overall quality in the state of New York.
There were approximately 2 music performance students who graduated with this degree at Syracuse in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the large city of Philadelphia, Temple is a public university with a fairly large student population. This university ranks 8th out of 103 colleges for overall quality in the state of Pennsylvania.
There were approximately 44 music performance students who graduated with this degree at Temple in the most recent data year.
Located in the midsize city of Tallahassee, Florida State is a public university with a fairly large student population. This university ranks 2nd out of 70 schools for overall quality in the state of Florida.
There were roughly 98 music performance students who graduated with this degree at Florida State in the most recent data year.
Located in the city of Champaign, UIUC is a public university with a very large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #41 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means UIUC is a great university overall.
There were about 21 music performance students who graduated with this degree at UIUC in the most recent year we have data available.
UC is a fairly large public university located in the city of Cincinnati. This university ranks 6th out of 91 colleges for overall quality in the state of Ohio.
There were approximately 154 music performance students who graduated with this degree at UC in the most recent data year.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
Your choice of music performance school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Music Performance School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
