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Major · Visual & Performing Arts

The administrative catchall of interdisciplinary arts education

Visual and Performing Arts, Other is the IPEDS bucket for arts programs that don’t map to a named CIP — interdisciplinary arts BAs, arts-administration tracks, arts-and-tech hybrids, and custom concentrations. About 573 degrees are awarded annually across 62 colleges, and the program substance varies considerably by institution.

Schools offering
62
Annual completions
573
Typical degree level
Associate's + Bachelor's
Median earnings (5yr)
$47k

About this major

Visual and Performing Arts, Other is exactly what its CIP definition says: “any instructional program in visual and performing arts not listed above.” It is the administrative catchall for programs that don’t fit the named four-digit siblings — Visual and Performing Arts General (50.0101), Dance (50.03xx), the Design family (50.04xx), the Drama and Theatre family (50.05xx), Cinematography and Film (50.0602), Art and Art Studies (50.07xx), the Music family (50.09xx), or Sound Arts (50.1004). What that means in practice: program content varies considerably by institution. At NYU or Columbia the code often signals an interdisciplinary BA combining studio, performance, and theory; at a small liberal-arts college like Mount Holyoke, a custom concentration designed with a faculty advisor; at a community college like Brightpoint or Tidewater, an applied associate’s in production, technical theatre, or media support.

The shared substance across these programs is arts literacy — making, performing, analyzing, and developing a portfolio or body of work. Beyond that foundation, the curriculum bends toward whatever specialty the department has defined: arts administration, arts-and-technology hybrids, arts entrepreneurship, integrated multidisciplinary practice. Students who do well here tend to be comfortable with ambiguity, willing to evaluate program substance over program label, and able to articulate to employers and graduate schools what they actually studied.

Nationally, about 573 degrees are awarded each year across 62 colleges, with NYU alone accounting for 148 of those completions and NYU plus Columbia together representing close to 38 percent of the national total. That institutional concentration tells the story: the bucket exists largely because a handful of specific programs have built interdisciplinary offerings outside the named CIPs. The one BLS occupation tied directly to this code is postsecondary art, drama, and music teachers (median wage about $80,190), but that role requires a master’s or doctorate, so it functions as a long-term destination rather than an entry-level credential. Five-year median earnings of about $46,929 — with bachelor’s completers near $49,194 and associate’s completers near $35,607 — sit in the wage-soft range typical of the broader arts family.

Section 3 · Careers

Where this major leads

Occupations most often associated with this major, from the federal BLS+O*NET crosswalk. Job-growth projections and median wages are national.

Occupation Median wage Job growth Typical education
Art, drama, and music teachers, postsecondary $80k +1.7% Master's degree
Section 4 · Earnings

Earnings at a glance

Median graduate earnings from the federal College Scorecard, 5 and 10 years out.

Median 5-year earnings

$47k

Associate's vs Bachelor's — early-career earnings

Associate's

$36k

Bachelor's

$49k

Who this major is for

You may thrive here if a specific program has caught your attention because of an interdisciplinary structure or concentration that the named arts CIPs don’t capture, if you can read a curriculum carefully and judge whether its substance fits your goals, if you are drawn to the kind of integrated arts BA that schools like NYU, Columbia, or Mount Holyoke build outside the standard taxonomy, if you can articulate a creative direction that doesn’t map cleanly onto music, drama, dance, art studies, or design, and if you accept that the bachelor’s is most useful as a foundation for graduate study, arts administration, arts education, or a pivot into adjacent fields.

Think twice if you want a clearly recognized industry credential — Visual and Performing Arts General (2,952 annual completions), Dance General (2,550), Drama and Theatre Arts (50.05xx family), or Music General (50.0901) carry more legibility in hiring and audition conversations. Reconsider if you can’t articulate why a specific program’s “Other” coding represents a real concentration rather than an administrative artifact, since the catchall label only helps when the program behind it is genuinely distinctive. The labor-market reality also matters: with bachelor’s completers landing near $49,194 at five years, fierce competition for the small-pie arts occupations, and generative AI compressing the commercial-illustration and commercial-music corners, the major name will not carry the credential — the portfolio, the specific program, and a clear plan for graduate school or a pivot lane will.

Section 6 · Where to study

Top colleges for Visual and Performing Arts, Other

Ranked by annual completions at the associate's or bachelor's level — a proxy for program scale.

College Location Assoc. Bach. Total
New York University New York, NY 0 148 148
Columbia University in the City of New York New York, NY 0 68 68
Brightpoint Community College Chester, VA 23 0 23
Mount Holyoke College South Hadley, MA 0 21 21
Tidewater Community College Norfolk, VA 21 0 21
Clemson University Clemson, SC 0 20 20
Baldwin Wallace University Berea, OH 0 20 20
Brigham Young University Provo, UT 0 16 16
Portland State University Portland, OR 0 16 16
Santa Monica College Santa Monica, CA 0 16 16
Section 7 · Explore sideways

Related majors to explore

Design and Visual Communications, General

4,248 completions/yr

Digital Arts

3,323 completions/yr

Visual and Performing Arts, General

2,952 completions/yr

Dance, General

2,550 completions/yr

Design and Applied Arts, Other

1,229 completions/yr

Dance, Other

80 completions/yr

Crafts/Craft Design, Folk Art and Artisanry

48 completions/yr

Ballet

42 completions/yr
Section 9 · Frequently asked

Common questions

What do Visual and Performing Arts, Other majors actually study?
There is no single answer. The CIP definition is literally “any instructional program in visual and performing arts not listed above,” which means program content varies considerably by institution. At NYU or Columbia the code often signals an interdisciplinary BA combining studio work, performance, and critical theory, or a hybrid arts-and-technology track. At a community college like Brightpoint or Tidewater it usually marks an applied associate’s in production, technical theatre, or media support. At a small liberal-arts school like Mount Holyoke it tends to be a custom concentration the student designs with a faculty advisor. The shared core is foundational arts literacy — making, performing, analyzing — but the specifics depend almost entirely on the program you choose.
How does this differ from named arts majors like Visual & Performing Arts General, Music, or Drama?
Named CIPs signal a defined curriculum. Visual and Performing Arts, General (CIP 50.0101, about 2,952 completions) is the broad-survey arts entry point; Dance, General (50.0301, 2,550 completions) commits to dance technique and performance; Music, General (50.0901) and Music Performance (50.0913) define a music conservatory pathway; the Drama and Theatre family (50.05xx) covers acting and theatre arts; Cinematography and Film/Video Production (50.0602) targets the camera and post-production track; Art/Art Studies (50.0701) and Painting (50.0708) define a studio-art path. This “Other” bucket holds the 573 degrees that don’t fit any named code — usually because the program is interdisciplinary by design or sits outside the standard taxonomy. If you want a recognizable industry credential, a named sibling CIP carries more legibility.
Why are completions so low — is this a niche or selective major?
The 573 annual completions across 62 colleges is not a signal of exclusivity. It is an artifact of administrative grouping: most arts students are coded into the named CIPs (Music, Drama, Dance, Art Studies, Design), and only programs with deliberately non-standard structures land in the “Other” bucket. The institutional concentration is also unusually high — NYU alone accounts for 148 of the 573 completions (about 26 percent), and NYU plus Columbia together represent close to 38 percent of the national total. That distribution tells you the bucket exists largely because a few specific programs at a few specific schools have built interdisciplinary offerings their departments code outside the named CIPs.
What jobs do graduates actually end up in?
Because this is a catchall CIP, there is no single occupation list — destinations track the named sibling CIPs and the program’s emphasis. The one BLS occupation tied directly to this CIP is postsecondary art, drama, and music teachers (median wage about $80,190), but that role typically requires a master’s or doctorate plus years of professional practice, so it functions as a long-term destination rather than an entry-level outcome. In practice, graduates move into the same labor markets that named arts CIPs feed: studio practice, performance, arts administration at nonprofits and museums, arts education (state certification required), production and creative direction roles, and increasingly pivots into marketing, content production, UX/UI design, or museum education. Five-year median earnings of about $46,929 — with bachelor’s completers near $49,194 and associate’s completers near $35,607 — sit in the wage-soft range typical of the broader arts family.
Do I need a bachelor’s, or is an associate’s enough?
It depends on the destination. The earnings data shows a meaningful gap: bachelor’s completers report median five-year earnings of about $49,194, while associate’s completers report roughly $35,607 — a difference of about $13,587. Most of the top-completing programs in this CIP — NYU, Columbia, Mount Holyoke, Clemson, Baldwin Wallace, BYU, Portland State — are bachelor’s-granting four-year schools. The associate’s versions concentrate at community colleges like Brightpoint and Tidewater, where the credential typically targets a defined production or technical role. If you intend to teach at the postsecondary level, work in a museum or gallery, or pivot into a graduate arts program, the bachelor’s is the practical floor.
How much should generative AI tools shape my decision here?
Generative AI — Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, Sora, Suno, Adobe Firefly — is squeezing the commercial-illustration, stock-photography, and commercial-music-bed corners of the arts labor market in real time. The lanes that hold up are the ones AI tools cannot replace: physical-object craft, live performance, creative direction, art education, museum and gallery work, preservation and conservation, and arts administration at 501(c)(3) nonprofits. Pivot lanes that have absorbed arts graduates for years also remain durable: marketing and content production, UX/UI design, art teaching with state certification, museum education, and master’s-bound paths like art therapy. When evaluating a specific program under this CIP, look at how the curriculum prepares you for those durable lanes — and whether it builds judgment, taste, and craft that AI tools are not replicating.