a master's degree in fine & studio arts is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #58 out of 343 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 5 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Fine & Studio Arts Master's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 209 master's degrees in fine & studio arts to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Fine & Studio Arts School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of fine & studio arts for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality fine arts 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
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 take this into account we include a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a collection of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
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
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 - How many other fine & studio 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 fine & studio 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 fine & studio arts related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for fine & studio arts students working on their master's degree.
The fine arts 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 Fine & Studio Arts Master's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region.
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The University of Texas at Austin is a good choice for students interested in a master's degree in fine & studio arts. UT Austin is a fairly large public university located in the city of Austin.
After graduating, fine arts master's recipients generally make about $19,765 in the first five years of their career.
Arizona State University - Tempe is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a master's degree in fine & studio arts. Located in the city of Tempe, ASU - Tempe is a public university with a very large student population.
Those fine & studio arts students who get their master's degree from Arizona State University - Tempe make $8,143 more than the standard fine arts grad.
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 fine & studio arts for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality fine arts program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
