a bachelor's degree in general visual & performing arts is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #94 out of 363 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 11 schools in the Middle Atlantic Region to determine which ones were the best for general visual & performing arts students pursuing a bachelor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 481 bachelor's degrees in general visual & performing arts during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great General Visual & Performing Arts School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The visual arts bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality visual 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 combination 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 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 much a school focuses on general visual & performing arts students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other general visual & performing arts students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor'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 general visual & performing 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 general visual & performing arts related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for general visual & performing 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 General Visual & Performing Arts Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region 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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SUNY Oneonta is a great decision for students interested in a bachelor's degree in general visual & performing arts. SUNY Oneonta is a moderately-sized public school located in the town of Oneonta.
Soon after graduation, visual arts bachelor's recipients usually make about $19,135 at the beginning of their careers.
Purchase College is a great option for students interested in a bachelor's degree in general visual & performing arts. Located in the suburb of Purchase, Purchase College is a public college with a small student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the visual arts program report average early career income of $22,024.
SUNY New Paltz is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in general visual & performing arts. SUNY New Paltz is a medium-sized public school located in the town of New Paltz.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the visual arts program earn around $19,893 in the first couple 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).
The visual arts bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality visual arts program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
