Music is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #43 most popular degree program in the country. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 373 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Music Schools ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 25,860 degrees in music to qualified students.
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 school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Music 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.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Music Schools list to help you make the college 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.
If you aren't interested in a particular degree level and want to know which schools are the overall best at delivering an education for the music degrees they offer, see the list below. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
It's hard to beat Northwestern University if you wish to pursue a degree in music. Northwestern is a very 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 170 music students who graduated with this degree at Northwestern in the most recent data year. Students who receive their degree from the music program make about $27,637 in the first couple years of working.
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a degree in music. U-M is a very large public university located in the midsize 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 approximately 185 music students who graduated with this degree at U-M in the most recent data year. Students who graduate with their degree from the music program state that they receive average early career income of $20,262.
Earn the music business degree that fits into the business world – and partners Southern New Hampshire University with world-renowned Berklee College of Music.
Any student pursuing a degree in music needs to check out New York University. 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 roughly 277 music students who graduated with this degree at NYU in the most recent year we have data available. Graduates who receive their degree from the music program make about $29,111 for their early career.
It's hard to beat Vanderbilt University if you wish to pursue a degree in music. Vanderbilt is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Nashville. A Best Colleges rank of #18 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means Vanderbilt is a great university overall.
There were about 44 music students who graduated with this degree at Vanderbilt in the most recent data year.
USC is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the 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 roughly 228 music students who graduated with this degree at USC in the most recent data year. Graduates who receive their degree from the music program earn an average of $21,246 for their early career.
Boston U is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the 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 about 126 music students who graduated with this degree at Boston U in the most recent year we have data available. Degree recipients from the music major at Boston University make $7,897 above the average graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Located in the small city of East Lansing, Michigan State is a public university with a very large student population. This university ranks 2nd out of 56 schools for overall quality in the state of Michigan.
There were approximately 165 music students who graduated with this degree at Michigan State in the most recent data year. Music degree recipients from Michigan State University get an earnings boost of around $11,351 over the average income of music graduates.
Located in the city of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon is a private not-for-profit university with a 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 roughly 104 music students who graduated with this degree at Carnegie Mellon in the most recent year we have data available. Students who receive their degree from the music program earn an average of $23,278 in the first couple years of working.
Johns Hopkins is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Baltimore. A Best Colleges rank of #6 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means Johns Hopkins is a great university overall.
There were roughly 215.00000000000003 music students who graduated with this degree at Johns Hopkins in the most recent data year. Students who receive their degree from the music program make around $26,680 in the first couple years of their career.
Located in the medium-sized 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 roughly 233 music students who graduated with this degree at University of Rochester in the most recent data year. Graduates who receive their degree from the music program make about $23,844 for their early career.
Located in the city of Providence, Brown is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #26 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means Brown is a great university overall.
There were roughly 32 music students who graduated with this degree at Brown in the most recent year we have data available.
Juilliard is a small private not-for-profit school located in the city of New York.
There were approximately 274 music students who graduated with this degree at Juilliard in the most recent data year. Soon after graduation, music degree recipients usually earn around $14,101 in their early careers.
IU Bloomington is a very large public university located in the small city of Bloomington. This university ranks 2nd out of 41 colleges for overall quality in the state of Indiana.
There were approximately 389 music students who graduated with this degree at IU Bloomington in the most recent data year. Students who graduate with their degree from the music program report average early career income of $26,635.
Located in the large city of Fort Worth, TCU is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population. This university ranks 4th out of 115 schools for overall quality in the state of Texas.
There were about 51 music students who graduated with this degree at TCU in the most recent year we have data available.
Belmont is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the city of Nashville. This university ranks 3rd out of 41 schools for overall quality in the state of Tennessee.
There were about 118 music students who graduated with this degree at Belmont in the most recent year we have data available. Students who receive their degree from the music program make around $24,852 in their early career salary.
U Miami is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of Coral Gables. This university ranks 6th out of 70 schools for overall quality in the state of Florida.
There were approximately 190 music students who graduated with this degree at U Miami in the most recent data year. After graduating, music degree recipients typically earn an average of $22,231 at the beginning of their careers.
Located in the suburb of Notre Dame, Notre Dame is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. This university ranks 1st out of 41 schools for overall quality in the state of Indiana.
There were approximately 8 music students who graduated with this degree at Notre Dame in the most recent data year.
Ithaca is a small private not-for-profit college located in the suburb of Ithaca. This college ranks 23rd out of 136 colleges for overall quality in the state of New York.
There were about 66 music students who graduated with this degree at Ithaca in the most recent year we have data available. Students who graduate with their degree from the music program report average early career wages of $23,119.
SFCM is a small private not-for-profit school located in the large city of San Francisco.
There were roughly 134 music students who graduated with this degree at SFCM in the most recent data year. Degree recipients from the music major at San Francisco Conservatory of Music make $5,336 above the standard college grad in this field shortly after graduation.
New School University is a medium-sized private not-for-profit school located in the city of New York. This school ranks 22nd out of 136 colleges for overall quality in the state of New York.
There were approximately 211 music students who graduated with this degree at New School University in the most recent year we have data available. Students who graduate with their degree from the music program state that they receive average early career earnings of $14,577.
Located in the city of Washington, CUA is a private not-for-profit university with a moderately-sized student population. This university ranks 4th out of 7 colleges for overall quality in the state of District of Columbia.
There were about 36 music students who graduated with this degree at CUA in the most recent data year. Students who graduate with their degree from the music program report average early career wages of $23,856.
Messiah is a small private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Mechanicsburg. This university ranks 40th out of 103 schools for overall quality in the state of Pennsylvania.
There were about 42 music students who graduated with this degree at Messiah in the most recent year we have data available. Degree recipients from the music major at Messiah University make $36,519 above the standard college grad with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Located in the city of Los Angeles, UCLA is a public university with a very 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 115 music students who graduated with this degree at UCLA in the most recent year we have data available. Soon after graduating, music degree recipients usually earn an average of $21,758 in the first five years of their career.
Dartmouth is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit college located in the remote town of Hanover. A Best Colleges rank of #12 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means Dartmouth is a great college overall.
There were about 22 music students who graduated with this degree at Dartmouth in the most recent data year.
Texas Tech is a fairly large public university located in the city of Lubbock. This university ranks 8th out of 115 colleges for overall quality in the state of Texas.
There were about 104 music students who graduated with this degree at Texas Tech in the most recent data year. Music degree recipients from Texas Tech University earn a boost of about $19,616 over the average earnings of music graduates.
This list represents the remainder of the colleges awarded a Best Music Schools badge.
Showing in this list means the college was ranked in the top 20% of the 373 different United States music schools we analyzed.
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 school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Music School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
