Graduates earn a median $25,194 two years after finishing, more than 1% of master's majors. Measured across 339 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 | Stanford University cost & debt at this university → | not published | $122,038 | not published | 9 |
| 2 | Sam Houston State University cost & debt at this university → | $59,381 | $57,705 | $65,080 | 20 |
| 3 | Messiah University | $59,416 | $55,693 | $56,809 | 36 |
| 4 | West Chester University of Pennsylvania cost & debt at this university → | not published | $52,107 | $56,355 | 19 |
| 5 | North Dakota State University-Main Campus cost & debt at this university → | not published | $52,107 | not published | 10 |
| 6 | East Texas A&M University | not published | $45,738 | not published | 8 |
| 7 | Ohio State University-Main Campus cost & debt at this university → | $34,497 | $44,971 | $52,031 | 15 |
| 8 | Academy of Art University | not published | $44,942 | $35,817 | 13 |
| 9 | University of Houston cost & debt at this university → | $24,857 | $41,193 | $41,305 | 28 |
| 10 | Texas Woman's University cost & debt at this university → | $43,285 | $41,025 | not published | 15 |
| 11 | University of Central Missouri cost & debt at this university → | not published | $40,188 | not published | 7 |
| 12 | East Carolina University cost & debt at this university → | not published | $39,927 | not published | 18 |
Two medians are worth separating. $25,194 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $29,051 is what the typical programme reports, counting a class of twenty the same as a class of two thousand. The weighted figure is lower here, which means the larger programmes in this field pay less than the small ones.
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 Music sits below the middle by $27,643.
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.
Whatever the subject pays, the money you do not borrow is the money you keep.
Tell us what you need and we will come back with the lenders that actually fund students from your country — including options with no US co-signer. No obligation, and we never charge you.
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.