a master's degree in drama & theater arts is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #83 out of 343 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 53 schools in the United States to determine which ones were the best for drama & theater arts students pursuing a master's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 1,756 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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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 host of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their master's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their master's 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 - 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 full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools 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.
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ADBLOCK #171
Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Drama & Theater Arts in the United States
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a master's degree in drama & theater arts. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
New York University is a good option for individuals interested in a master's degree in drama & theater arts. NYU is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of New York.
Master's recipients from the drama & theater arts degree program at New York University earn $12,859 above the typical college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
University of Southern California is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a master's degree in drama & theater arts. Located in the large city of Los Angeles, USC is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
After graduating, theater master's recipients usually make an average of $21,764 at the beginning of their careers.
Every student who is interested in a master's degree in drama & theater arts needs to look into Carnegie Mellon University. Carnegie Mellon is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Pittsburgh.
Students who graduate with their master's from the theater program report average early career earnings of $21,814.
Northwestern University is a great choice for students pursuing a master's degree in drama & theater arts. Located in the city of Evanston, Northwestern is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Students who graduate with their master's from the theater program report average early career income of $25,804.
UT Austin is a very large public university located in the large city of Austin.
Drama & Theater Arts master's degree recipients from The University of Texas at Austin receive an earnings boost of around $11,547 above the typical earnings of drama & theater arts graduates.
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Honorable Mentions
Here are some additional great schools for Drama & Theater Arts students that almost earned our Best Drama & Theater Arts Master's Degree Schools award.
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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
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