Drama & Theater Arts is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #83 most popular master's degree program in the country. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
College Factual looked at 13 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Drama & Theater Arts Master's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 313 master's degrees in drama & theater arts to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Drama & Theater Arts School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of drama & theater arts for getting your master's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we include a school's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a collection of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their master's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your master's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to drama & theater arts students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other drama & theater arts students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
Student Debt - How easy is it for drama & theater arts to pay back their student loans after receiving their master's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized drama & theater arts related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for drama & theater arts students working on their master's degree.
The theater school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Drama & Theater Arts Master's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region.
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Every student who is interested in a master's degree in drama & theater arts has to take a look at University of Southern California. Located in the large city of Los Angeles, USC is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Master's students who receive their degree from the theater program make an average of $21,764 in their early career salary.
Every student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in drama & theater arts needs to take a look at University of California - San Diego. Located in the city of La Jolla, UCSD is a public university with a very large student population.
Master's students who receive their degree from the theater program earn an average of $14,358 in the first couple years of working.
California Institute of the Arts is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a master's degree in drama & theater arts. CalArts is a small private not-for-profit school located in the large suburb of Valencia.
Master's recipients from the drama & theater arts major at California Institute of the Arts earn $9,176 more than the average graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Located in the city of Los Angeles, Loyola Marymount is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Drama & Theater Arts master's degree recipients from Loyola Marymount University receive an earnings boost of about $5,584 above the typical earnings of drama & theater arts majors.
Academy of Art University is a moderately-sized private for-profit university located in the large city of San Francisco.
Master's recipients from the drama & theater arts major at Academy of Art University make $10,655 more than the standard college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
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 drama & theater arts for getting your master's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
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