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.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 11 schools in California to determine which ones were the best for drama & theater arts students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 272 master's degrees in drama & theater arts during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Drama & Theater Arts School for Your Master's Degree
The theater master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality theater program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on drama & theater arts students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of drama & theater arts students who choose to seek a master's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How much debt drama & theater arts students go into to obtain their master's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized drama & theater arts related body.
Our full 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.
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 Drama & Theater Arts Master's Degree Schools in California list to help you make the college decision.
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It's hard to beat University of Southern California if you wish to pursue a master's degree in drama & theater arts. USC is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Los Angeles.
Master's students who receive their degree from the theater program make an average of $21,764 for their early career.
It is hard to beat University of California - San Diego if you want to pursue a master's degree in drama & theater arts. UCSD is a very large public university located in the city of La Jolla.
Master's students who receive their degree from the theater program earn an average of $14,358 in the first couple years of their career.
California Institute of the Arts is a great decision for individuals interested in a master's degree in drama & theater arts. Located in the large suburb of Valencia, CalArts is a private not-for-profit school with a small student population.
Master's recipients from the drama & theater arts degree program at California Institute of the Arts earn $9,650 above the standard college graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
Loyola Marymount is a large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Los Angeles.
Drama & Theater Arts master's degree recipients from Loyola Marymount University receive an earnings boost of around $6,058 above the average income of drama & theater arts graduates.
Located in the large city of San Francisco, Academy of Art University is a private for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.
Master's recipients from the drama & theater arts program at Academy of Art University make $11,129 above the average college grad with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
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).
The theater master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality theater program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
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