If you pursue a bachelor's degree in music, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #34 most popular program in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 10 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Music Bachelor's Degree Schools in New Jersey ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 437 bachelor's degrees in music during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Earn the music business degree that fits into the business world – and partners Southern New Hampshire University with world-renowned Berklee College of Music.
Choosing a Great Music School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of music for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality music 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 many resources a school devotes to music students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other music 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 music 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 music related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for music 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 Music Bachelor's Degree Schools in New Jersey list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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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Earn the music business degree that fits into the business world – and partners Southern New Hampshire University with world-renowned Berklee College of Music.
It is difficult to beat Rutgers University - New Brunswick if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in music. Rutgers New Brunswick is a very large public university located in the city of New Brunswick.
Music bachelor's degree recipients from Rutgers University - New Brunswick earn a boost of about $8,881 over the typical income of music graduates.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in music has to check out Rowan University. Located in the suburb of Glassboro, Rowan is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those music students who get their bachelor's degree from Rowan University make $4,955 more than the standard music student.
It's difficult to beat Rider University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in music. Rider is a small private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of Lawrenceville.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the music program make around $20,727 in the first couple years of working.
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.