SUMMARY
A degree in Musical Theatre is not only a valuable choice, but often a critical first step for undergraduates seeking to begin a career as a newscast producer, a stagehand, or a performer. In fact, musical theatre is a very rare degree ranking as the 248th most popular degree. Last academic year alone, there were 698 musical theatre graduates. In-state tuition for musical theatre at private universities is, on average, 3.5 times more costly than their public counterparts.
With just 104 colleges having programs for musical theatre you could have limited options as to the institutions you can choose from. If you're hoping to immerse yourself with other musical theatre students, consider colleges in New York which have more undergrads admitted to musical theatre than any other state. More generally, the best region to study musical theatre is in the Mid East region with Pace University, The University of the Arts, and Point Park University best representing the region. Interestingly, our selection for the top conference to study musical theatre is the Big Ten Conference with Indiana University-Bloomington representing the conference. On that topic, our belief is that the best school for musical theatre is University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and here you can find our comprehensive list for the best colleges.
The objectively best school is not necessarily the 'best' school for every student. There are tons of factors to think about when deciding on college. Stuff like campus amenities, transportation services, and food might alter your choice on which school to attend. Here at authority.org, we've evaluated the pros and cons for you. If, for example, you want to know which musical theatre university is home to the best college campus, the answer is Syracuse University. If you are very interested in which college has the best campus, we have a whole list dedicated to that. We have carefully pored through student reviews, professor reviews, government databases, and more so we can compare every major in the United States in an unbiased and informative way. You can find our comprehensive list for the universities with the best student life here and, from that list, our choice of the school with the best student life for musical theatre is University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Curious why? Continue reading to learn more about Authority's top selections. Many of our picks might surprise you.
If expense is a major deciding factor in your decisions, you might consider avoiding Syracuse University. Syracuse University is the most expensive college for musical theatre, at least regarding out of state attendance. We have an entire list of the most expensive colleges that might put the expense at Syracuse University into perspective. Additionally, you could want to know that musical theatre is the 184th most expensive program in the US, with an average cost of $31,200. To zoom out a little, the most costly state for musical theatre on our list is District of Columbia demonstrated with a tuition of $49,070 at the main school in the state American University. Even more broadly, the most expensive region for musical theatre is the Mid East region which is best demonstrated with American University with a cost of $49,070, The New School with a cost of $49,770, and Syracuse University with a cost of $50,616.
Our cheapest region for musical theatre is the Southwest region which is represented by Sam Houston State University with a cost of $15,984, Texas State University with a cost of $19,868, and West Texas A & M University with a cost of $6,960. In better news, the most affordable university for musical theatre is SUNY at Purchase College. Authority.org's comprehensive list of the most affordable colleges can be explored here.
In-state attendees can anticipate paying about $10,800 for a degree in musical theatre. The cost inflates significantly to a median of $25,400 for the out-of-state public-school student. As such, you might be interested in our pick for the college with the best value for musical theatre: University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. On this page you can see our comprehensive list about the universities we believe to be the best value overall. Bear in mind, this section is based on the assumption that you are an out-of-state student. A discussion of value changes when in-state tuition costs are considered, but we do not know where you live (and are not trying to collect that kind of data).
Earnings for musical theatre majors differ a lot, but two years after leaving college graduates will regularly make around $49,100. While there can be a lot of variation in salary; highest paid earners can make up to $102,300. Right out of school, the lowest earning positions within the musical theatre field make $24,000, which could be worse. The top earning graduates from musical theatre graduated from University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and if you are looking for schools with all of the highest earning graduates, Authority has that too.
The prevailing diversity of musical theatre sits subpar, being within only the 21st percentile of majors nationally. The school with the most composite diversity for musical theatre is The New School and here you can find our comprehensive list of the universities with the most diversity. The financial diversity of Musical Theatre only ranks within the 70th percentile of all majors. Racial diversity is even less in the 16th percentile. White students make up the largest share at 77% of students majoring in musical theatre. Additionally, 62% of scholars seeking a musical theatre major are women.
The median rating of musical theatre professors is 4.3 stars, a ranking that is 8% better than the average for every major; this is a fairly good score. If you want to find the most popular musical theatre instructor in the country, look no further than Jennifer Bouquet from Southeastern Louisiana University. It might surprise you, but the best ranked musical theatre professors by student are at Southeastern Louisiana University. As we consider data other than simply rankings we find that the college with the overall best professors for musical theatre is University of California-Irvine. One can find more detail on our ever evolving ranking methodology for the best overall professors here, along with some of the best examples of professors in the U.S.
Finally, the hardest university to get into for musical theatre is University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. While we think of this list more as a novelty, we do have a general page for the hardest colleges to get into. With that said, here at Authority we hope you believe that considering academics through a lens primarily shaped by superlatives could be said to be the root of many of higher education's fundamental issues. We at Authority encourage you to look at some of our other pages on different topics and peruse some of Authority's background pages on essential details to look for as you progress with your school search.