Dance is about average in terms of popularity for degree programs. That is, it ranks #158 out of the 395 majors across the country that we analyze each year. So, you may have to do some digging around to find quality schools that offer the degree program. This list can help with that.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 3 schools in Illinois to determine which ones were the best for dance students pursuing a degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 46 degrees in dance annually.
The dance program you select can have a big impact on your future. That's why we developed our collection of Best Schools for Dance rankings. For our Best Overall Dance School rankings, we roll up the results of our degree-level rankings, weighted by the number of degrees awarded at that level.
You may want to choose one of the degree levels below to find the schools of most interest to you.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Dance Schools in Illinois list, to help you choose the best school for you.
More interested in schools in a specific area of the country? Filter this list by region or state.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
Although we recommend filtering by degree level first, you can view the list below to see which schools give the educational experience for the dance degree levels they offer.
It's difficult to beat University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign if you want to pursue a degree in dance. Located in the small city of Champaign, UIUC is a public university with a very large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #41 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means UIUC is a great university overall.
There were about 11 dance students who graduated with this degree at UIUC in the most recent data year.
It's hard to beat Columbia College Chicago if you want to pursue a degree in dance. Located in the large city of Chicago, Columbia is a private not-for-profit college with a medium-sized student population. This college ranks 9th out of 85 colleges for overall quality in the state of Illinois.
There were roughly 19 dance students who graduated with this degree at Columbia in the most recent data year.
Any student pursuing a degree in dance has to take a look at Loyola University Chicago. Located in the large city of Chicago, Loyola Chicago is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population. This university ranks 4th out of 85 colleges for overall quality in the state of Illinois.
There were approximately 7 dance students who graduated with this degree at Loyola Chicago in the most recent data year.
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).
The dance program you select can have a big impact on your future. That's why we developed our collection of Best Schools for Dance rankings. For our Best Overall Dance School rankings, we roll up the results of our degree-level rankings, weighted by the number of degrees awarded at that level.
