Musical Theater is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #426 most popular degree program in the country. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 4 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Musical Theater Schools in Illinois ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 113 degrees in musical theater annually.
Earn the music business degree that fits into the business world – and partners Southern New Hampshire University with world-renowned Berklee College of Music.
The musical theatre program you select can have a big impact on your future. That's why we developed our collection of Best Schools for Musical Theater rankings. In order to come up with a best overall ranking for musical theater schools, we combine our degree-level rankings, weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each level.
You may want to choose one of the degree levels below to find the schools of most interest to you.
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 Musical Theater Schools in Illinois list to help you make the college decision.
You can also filter this list by location to find schools closer to you.
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.
Earn the music business degree that fits into the business world – and partners Southern New Hampshire University with world-renowned Berklee College of Music.
If you aren't interested in a particular degree level and want to know which schools are the overall best at delivering an education for the musical theatre degrees they offer, see the list below.
Columbia College Chicago is a good decision for students pursuing a degree in musical theater. Located in the city of Chicago, Columbia is a private not-for-profit college with a moderately-sized student population. A Best Colleges rank of #212 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means Columbia is a great college overall.
There were roughly 33 musical theater students who graduated with this degree at Columbia in the most recent data year.
Any student pursuing a degree in musical theater has to look into Millikin University. Millikin is a small private not-for-profit university located in the small city of Decatur. This university ranks 40th out of 85 schools for overall quality in the state of Illinois.
There were approximately 31 musical theater students who graduated with this degree at Millikin in the most recent data 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.
Illinois Wesleyan University is a great choice for students pursuing a degree in musical theater. Located in the small city of Bloomington, Illinois Wesleyan is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population. A Best Colleges rank of #514 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means Illinois Wesleyan is a great university overall.
There were approximately 9 musical theater students who graduated with this degree at Illinois Wesleyan in the most recent year we have data available.
It is hard to beat Roosevelt University if you wish to pursue a degree in musical theater. Located in the large city of Chicago, Roosevelt is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population. This university ranks 24th out of 85 colleges for overall quality in the state of Illinois.
There were approximately 26 musical theater students who graduated with this degree at Roosevelt 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).
Credit for the banner image above goes to Donald Judge.
The musical theatre program you select can have a big impact on your future. That's why we developed our collection of Best Schools for Musical Theater rankings. In order to come up with a best overall ranking for musical theater schools, we combine our degree-level rankings, weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each level.
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