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.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 60 schools in the Middle Atlantic Region to determine which ones were the best for music students pursuing a bachelor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 2,564 bachelor's degrees in music during the 2021-2022 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
Your choice of music for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. 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 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 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
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 - How many other music students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
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 easy is it for music to pay back their student loans after receiving their bachelor's degree.
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 the Middle Atlantic Region 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.
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Featured Music Programs
Learn about start dates, transferring credits, availability of financial aid, and more by contacting the universities below.
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 Bachelor’s Students to Study Music in the Middle Atlantic Region
The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor'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.
12 Top Middle Atlantic Region Schools for a Bachelor's in Music
It is hard to beat New York University if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in music. Located in the large city of New York, NYU is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the music program earn about $24,398 in their early career salary.
It is difficult to beat University of Rochester if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in music. Located in the medium-sized city of Rochester, University of Rochester is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.
After graduating, music bachelor's recipients typically earn an average of $14,310 in their early careers.
Johns Hopkins University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in music. Johns Hopkins is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Baltimore.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the music program make an average of $16,479 in their early career salary.
Located in the large city of New York, Columbia is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Music bachelor's degree recipients from Columbia University in the City of New York receive an earnings boost of approximately $8,147 over the average earnings of music graduates.
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 Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region 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.