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.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 12 schools in Pennsylvania to determine which ones were the best for music students pursuing a bachelor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 624 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 complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for music students working on their bachelor's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Music Bachelor's Degree Schools in Pennsylvania ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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.
Carnegie Mellon University is a wonderful decision for students pursuing a bachelor's degree in music. Located in the large city of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.More information about a bachelor’s in music from Carnegie Mellon University
Temple University is a wonderful choice for students pursuing a bachelor's degree in music. Located in the large city of Philadelphia, Temple is a public university with a very large student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the music program state that they receive average early career income of $19,507.
The University of the Arts is a wonderful choice for students pursuing a bachelor's degree in music. Located in the large city of Philadelphia, UArts is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the music program earn about $20,543 in their early career salary.
Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in music has to take a look at Moravian College. Located in the small city of Bethlehem, Moravian is a private not-for-profit college with a small student population.More information about a bachelor’s in music from Moravian College
Located in the town of Indiana, IUP is a public university with a medium-sized student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the music program at Indiana University of Pennsylvania - Main Campus make $5,456 above the average college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
SRU is a moderately-sized public university located in the town of Slippery Rock.
Bachelor's recipients from the music program at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania earn $10,046 above the standard graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
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.