If you pursue a bachelor's degree in fine & studio arts, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #22 most popular program in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 8 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Fine & Studio Arts Bachelor's Degree Schools in Virginia ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 538 bachelor's degrees in fine & studio arts to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Fine & Studio Arts School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The fine arts bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality fine arts program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we consider a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a host of various 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 bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor'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 fine & studio arts students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of fine & studio arts students who choose to seek a bachelor's 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 fine & studio arts students go into to obtain their bachelor'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 fine & studio arts related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for fine & studio arts students working on their bachelor's degree.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Fine & Studio Arts Bachelor's Degree Schools in Virginia list, to help you choose the best school for you.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
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James Madison University is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in fine & studio arts. Located in the small city of Harrisonburg, JMU is a public university with a very large student population.
Fine & Studio Arts bachelor's degree recipients from James Madison University receive an earnings boost of approximately $7,069 over the average earnings of fine & studio arts graduates.
University of Virginia - Main Campus is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in fine & studio arts. University of Virginia is a very large public university located in the suburb of Charlottesville.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the fine arts program earn an average of $23,372 in their early career salary.
Virginia Tech is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in fine & studio arts. Virginia Tech is a very large public school located in the small city of Blacksburg.
Those fine & studio arts students who get their bachelor's degree from Virginia Tech receive $10,495 more than the standard fine arts student.
Virginia Commonwealth University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in fine & studio arts. VCU is a fairly large public university located in the medium-sized city of Richmond.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the fine arts program earn around $21,916 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).
The fine arts bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality fine arts program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
