If you plan on getting your master's degree in visual & performing arts, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #10 in the country in terms of popularity. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 2 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Visual & Performing Arts Master's Degree Schools in Washington ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 117 master's degrees in visual & performing arts to qualified students.
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Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of master's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their master'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 much a school focuses on visual & performing arts students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of visual & performing arts 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 visual & performing arts 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 visual & performing arts related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for visual & performing arts students working on their master's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Visual & Performing Arts Master's Degree Schools in Washington ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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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.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
by our College Data Analytics Team
