a master's degree in music is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #36 out of 343 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 150 schools in the United States to determine which ones were the best for music students pursuing a master's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 6,247 master'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 Master's Degree
The music master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. 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 for a Master's Degree 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 master's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their master'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 - The number of music students who choose to seek a master's degree at the school.
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 much debt music students go into to obtain their master's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
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 master'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 Master's Degree Schools list to help you make the college decision.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "visual-and-performing-arts//music"
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 Master’s Students to Study Music in the United States
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a master'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.
Every student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in music needs to look into Northwestern University. Northwestern is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Evanston.
Students who graduate with their master's from the music program state that they receive average early career earnings of $21,290.
Every student who is interested in a master's degree in music has to look into New York University. Located in the large city of New York, NYU is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Master's students who receive their degree from the music program earn around $32,175 for their early career.
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor is a good choice for individuals pursuing a master's degree in music. U-M is a fairly large public university located in the city of Ann Arbor.
Soon after graduation, music master's recipients generally earn about $16,971 in their early careers.
It is difficult to beat University of Southern California if you wish to pursue a master's degree in music. USC is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Los Angeles.
Students who graduate with their master's from the music program state that they receive average early career income of $27,510.
Located in the city of East Lansing, Michigan State is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Music master's degree recipients from Michigan State University receive an earnings boost of approximately $10,983 above the typical income of music graduates.
SFCM is a fairly small private not-for-profit school located in the large city of San Francisco.
Master's recipients from the music degree program at San Francisco Conservatory of Music make $3,524 above the standard college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Messiah is a small private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of Mechanicsburg.
Master's recipients from the music degree program at Messiah University get $34,608 above the average college graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
DEBUG: No relevant offers, showing generic ESYOH widget
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 Master's Degree Schools 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.
The music master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. 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:
