If you plan on getting your bachelor's degree in drama & theater arts, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #38 in the country in terms of popularity. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 3 schools in Maryland to determine which ones were the best for drama & theater arts students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 137 bachelor's degrees in drama & theater arts to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Drama & Theater Arts School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of drama & theater arts for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality theater program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
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 ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of bachelor's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their bachelor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
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 - How many other drama & theater arts students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
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 easy is it for drama & theater arts to pay back their student loans after receiving their bachelor'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 bachelor'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 Bachelor's Degree Schools in Maryland.
In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat.
Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.
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University of Maryland - College Park is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in drama & theater arts. UMCP is a very large public university located in the suburb of College Park.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the theater program report average early career earnings of $17,985.
It is hard to beat Towson University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in drama & theater arts. Located in the city of Towson, Towson is a public university with a fairly large student population.
After graduating, theater bachelor's recipients usually earn around $19,871 at the beginning of their careers.
University of Maryland - Baltimore County is a great decision for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in drama & theater arts. Located in the large suburb of Baltimore, UMBC is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Soon after graduation, theater bachelor's recipients usually earn about $17,381 in the first five years of their 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).
Your choice of drama & theater arts for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality theater program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
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