Graduates earn a median $32,925 two years after finishing, more than 3% of master's majors. Measured across 187 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.
On earnings alone this is among the lowest-paying majors at this level. That does not make it a bad subject, but it does make the debt you take on for it matter more.
| # | University | 1 yr out | 2 yrs out | 3 yrs out | Graduates/yr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Catholic University of America cost & debt at this university → | not published | $52,107 | not published | 4 |
| 2 | University of North Carolina School of the Arts | $40,014 | $48,041 | $52,882 | 20 |
| 3 | CUNY Graduate School and University Center | not published | $44,189 | not published | 25 |
| 4 | University of Wisconsin-Madison cost & debt at this university → | not published | $43,798 | not published | — |
| 5 | Southern Methodist University cost & debt at this university → | not published | $42,682 | not published | 4 |
| 6 | Virginia Commonwealth University cost & debt at this university → | not published | $41,565 | $39,986 | 7 |
| 7 | Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus cost & debt at this university → | not published | $41,205 | not published | 6 |
| 8 | Boston University cost & debt at this university → | not published | $41,193 | not published | 23 |
| 9 | New York University cost & debt at this university → | $46,241 | $40,017 | $48,596 | 121 |
| 10 | Florida State University cost & debt at this university → | $31,726 | $39,523 | $45,919 | 41 |
| 11 | Northern Illinois University cost & debt at this university → | not published | $39,369 | $37,321 | 2 |
| 12 | University of Georgia | not published | $39,009 | not published | 9 |
It is the median of what real graduates of this exact major earned, taken from tax records two years after they completed. It is not a starting salary, not an average of job adverts, and not a projection. The median master's major in this dataset reports $52,837, so Drama & Theatre Arts and Stagecraft sits below the middle by $19,912.
Two years is early in a career. Fields with long training pipelines — medicine, law, research — look weaker at this point than they will at ten, while trades and applied technical fields peak sooner. Read a low figure in a long-pipeline subject as "slow start", not "bad degree".
There is no debt figure here on purpose. The Department of Education publishes earnings by field of study but not borrowing, so nobody can honestly tell you the debt of a specific major. Debt is published per institution — that is where our university cost pages carry it.
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Classified by the Department of Education as Drama/Theatre Arts and Stagecraft (CIP 5005). Source: US Department of Education College Scorecard, field-of-study earnings (median earnings of graduates who received federal financial aid, measured 1–3 years after completion). Figures are per major and credential level, pooled across US programmes. Information only, not financial advice.