an associate degree in drama & theater arts is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #65 out of 328 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 5 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Drama & Theater Arts Associate Degree Schools in New York ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 335 associate degrees in drama & theater arts during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Drama & Theater Arts School for Your Associate Degree
The theater associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To account for this we include a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a combination of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of associate graduates during the early years of their career. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their associate degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
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 - The number of drama & theater arts students who choose to seek a associate degree at the school.
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 much debt drama & theater arts students go into to obtain their associate 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 associate degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Drama & Theater Arts Associate Degree Schools in New York ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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Every student pursuing a degree in an associate degree in drama & theater arts needs to check out American Musical and Dramatic Academy. Located in the large city of New York, American Musical and Dramatic Academy is a private not-for-profit school with a small student population.
After graduating, theater associate recipients generally earn about $15,909 in their early careers.
American Academy of Dramatic Arts - New York is one of the best schools in the country for getting an associate degree in drama & theater arts. Located in the city of New York, American Academy of Dramatic Arts - New York is a private not-for-profit school with a fairly small student population.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the theater program earn around $12,445 in the first couple years of their career.
LaGuardia Community College is a wonderful decision for individuals pursuing an associate degree in drama & theater arts. LaGuardia is a large public college located in the large city of Long Island City.
Associate students who receive their degree from the theater program earn an average of $15,314 for their early career.
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).