Ranked #34 in popularity, music is one of the most sought-after bachelor's degree programs in the nation. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
College Factual looked at 54 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Music Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 2,245 bachelor's degrees in music to qualified students.
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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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.
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
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 colleges for music students working on their bachelor's degree.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Music Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region list to help you make the college decision.
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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Earn the music business degree that fits into the business world – and partners Southern New Hampshire University with world-renowned Berklee College of Music.
Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study Music in the Great Lakes Region
The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in music. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
10 Top Great Lakes Region Schools for a Bachelor's in Music
Northwestern University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in music. Northwestern is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the small city of Evanston.
Bachelor's recipients from the music degree program at Northwestern University earn $5,641 more than the typical college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor is a good decision for students pursuing a bachelor's degree in music. U-M is a fairly large public university located in the city of Ann Arbor.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the music program earn around $22,272 in their early career salary.
Michigan State University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in music. Located in the city of East Lansing, Michigan State is a public university with a very large student population.
Those music students who get their bachelor's degree from Michigan State University receive $9,474 more than the standard music grad.
It's difficult to beat Indiana University - Bloomington if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in music. IU Bloomington is a very large public university located in the small city of Bloomington.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the music program earn around $15,911 in the first couple years of their career.
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Additional Noteworthy Schools
These are some additional schools worth mentioning that are also great but just didn't quite make the cut to earn our top Best Music Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region award.
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.
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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
