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.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 6 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Music Bachelor's Degree Schools in Missouri ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 224 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
The music bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. 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 good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we consider a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a host of various 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 music students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of music students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
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 much debt music students go into to obtain their bachelor'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 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 Missouri ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that 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.
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.
University of Missouri - Columbia is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in music. Located in the midsize city of Columbia, Mizzou is a public university with a very large student population.
Those music students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Missouri - Columbia earn $4,837 more than the average music grad.
Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in music has to take a look at University of Missouri - Kansas City. Located in the city of Kansas City, UMKC is a public university with a large student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the music program state that they receive average early career wages of $22,315.
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 bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
