2024 Best Colleges for Music

SUMMARY

Choosing to study Music is a valuable choice and ordinarily a requisite first step for undergrads endeavoring to pursue a career as a folk musician, a rap musician, or a metal musician. Interestingly, music is a fairly common choice ranking as the 33rd most popular area of study. Last year, there were 15,747 music diplomas received. In-state tuition for music at private colleges is, on average, 4.1 times more pricey than their public counterparts.

With a staggering 1086 universities having programs for this degree odds are that any schools you are interested in will have an option for you. If you're looking to surround yourself with other music undergraduates, consider colleges in California which have the most undergrads admitted to music annually. Zooming out, the best region to get a degree in music is in the Southeast region with Florida State University, Full Sail University, and Belmont University best representing the region. Interestingly, our selection for the best conference to study music is the Big Ten Conference with Northwestern University, Indiana University-Bloomington, and University of Michigan-Ann Arbor representing the conference. On that topic, our belief is that the best college for music is Stanford University. You might also want to check out our list of the best colleges.

The objectively 'best' school does not mean it is the 'best' school for every student. There might be lots of perspectives to consider when deciding on institution. Things such as campus amenities, transportation services, and food would change your inclinations on where to go to college. Here at authority.org, we've weighed the pros and cons for you. If, for example, you are intrigued by which music university boasts the top campus, the winner is Harvard University. If, for example, you are primarily interested in which school boasts the top campus, we have an entire page dedicated to that. We have carefully pored through professor reviews, student reviews, government databases, and more to evaluate every U.S. major in an unbiased and informative way. Here you can find our well researched list for the schools with the best student life&nbspand, from that list, our selection of the school with the best student life for music is Cornell University. Are you curious why? Keep scrolling to find out more about Authority's top selections. Some of our picks will probably surprise you.

If expense is a major influence in your decision on where to go to school, you might consider avoiding Columbia University in the City of New York. Columbia University in the City of New York&nbspis the most expensive college for music, at least for out of state students. We have a list of the most expensive&nbspuniversities that might put the price tag of Columbia University in the City of New York&nbspinto perspective. For more context, you might care to know that music is the 32nd most expensive program in America, with an average cost of $51,800. On a broader scale, the most expensive state for music nationally is District of Columbia with costs at the primary three institutions American University at $49,070, The Catholic University of America at $46,950, and tuition and fees at George Washington University of $46,950. To zoom out even further, the most expensive region for music is the New England region which is best demonstrated with Amherst College with a cost of $57,640, Tufts University with a cost of $57,324, and Brown University with a cost of $57,112.

Our cheapest region for music is the Southeast region which is represented by Southern University and A & M College with a cost of $4,972, Western Carolina University with a cost of $5,000, and College of Charleston with a cost of $70. In better news, the most affordable university for music is Berklee College of Music. Our full list of the most affordable universities can be explored here.

In-state learners can anticipate paying in the neighborhood of $9,900 for a degree in music. That price swells significantly to an average of $22,600 for the out-of-state public-school undergrad. As such, you might be interested in our selection for the university representing the best value for music: Stanford University. Here you will find our comprehensive list about the colleges we believe to be the best value&nbspoverall. Bear in mind, this idea is based on being an out-of-state student. A discussion of value changes when it comes to in-state tuition, as such, we are using out-of-state tuition as the baseline.

Earnings for music students can vary, but within two years graduation students will often make around $53,000. While there is much variation in salary; top positions can rake in up to $104,900. Right out of college, the minimum earning positions within the music field make $27,100, which isn't that bad. The highest earning graduates from music attended Stanford University&nbspand if you want to find the schools with all of the highest earning graduates, Authority has that too.

The general diversity of music is pretty high, coming within the 76th percentile of all majors. The university with the most composite diversity for music is Carnegie Mellon University&nbspand here you can find our comprehensive list of the colleges with the most diversity. The overall financial diversity of the Music major ranks only within the 22nd percentile compared to all other majors. Racial diversity is actually greater, ranking in the 62nd percentile. White collegians compose the largest share at 55% of students studying music. Additionally, 53% of undergraduates pursuing a music major are men.

The median score of music's professors is 4.2 stars, a score which is 5% higher than the median across every major; which is a good score. If you want to find the most popular music professor in the nation, consider looking up Thomas Kabin at University of Arkansas. This might be shocking, but the top ranked music instructors from student rankings are at California State University-Northridge. If we including data beyond simply rankings we find that the college possessing the overall best instructors for music is Stanford University. You can find an explanation of our evolving ranking methodology for the best overall professors here, along with many of the top professors in the U.S.

Finally, the hardest university to get into for music is Stanford University. While we think of this list more as a novelty, we do have a detailed list of the hardest colleges to get into. With that said, we do hope you believe that looking at the higher education world through a lens mainly built on superlatives can cause problems. We at Authority encourage you to read our more focused pages on individual colleges and peruse some of our informative background articles on beneficial things to think about as your college search develops.