CU Denver Music (Bachelor's): Tuition, Graduate Salary, and Debt
- Bachelor's in Music
- Public university
- Denver, CO
- About 92 graduates a year
College Scorecard June 2026 release · BLS wages May 2025
The short answer
CU Denver music graduates earn about what music graduates earn nationally, $29,483 in their first year. The typical graduate leaves with $27,000 in federal loans, close to the national median of $26,000. One other Colorado program reports higher pay.
How it compares
Each figure is the median for graduates of the program. The Colorado and national columns are the medians across all music bachelor's programs that report the figure.
Five years out, CU Denver graduates earn less than the national figure and about $1,489 less than the Colorado median.
Debt and first-year pay at every Colorado music program
Programs in the upper left give graduates higher pay for less debt. Dashed lines mark the Colorado medians.
Hover over or tap a dot to see the school. Only programs that report both earnings and debt are shown.
What graduates earn over time
Pay rises about 24% between the first and fifth year.
Year 1 and year 5 figures come from different graduating classes, so the growth rate is an estimate.
Paying back the loans
On a standard 10-year plan, the median debt means a payment of about $286 a month, or 11.6% of a graduate's typical monthly pay in the first year.
The government publishes these as ranges to protect privacy. They were measured in 2018 to 2020, partly during the pandemic pause on federal loan payments, so the forbearance share may be higher than usual. Separately, 33 parents took out Parent PLUS loans for these students, with a median of $56,113.
Where graduates work, and what the pay is worth
83% of graduates (83 of 100) were working in Colorado one year after graduating. Prices in the Denver area are about 6% above the national average, so a $29,483 salary here buys what about $27,871 buys in a typical US city.
Careers this field leads to
These are the jobs that the federal crosswalk from fields of study to occupations links to music, largest first. Pay is the median across all experience levels.
Secondary School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education
$72,900Median pay in Colorado. 18,310 people work in this job in Colorado. Nationally, jobs are projected to stay about the same in number from 2025 to 2035, with about 63,500 openings a year. Typical education to start: bachelor's degree.
Sound Engineering Technicians
$60,630Median pay in Colorado. 170 people work in this job in Colorado. Nationally, jobs are projected to shrink 3% from 2025 to 2035, with about 1,000 openings a year. Typical education to start: postsecondary nondegree award.
Music Directors and Composers
$88,460Median pay in Colorado. 160 people work in this job in Colorado. Nationally, jobs are projected to grow 1% from 2025 to 2035, with about 4,200 openings a year. Typical education to start: bachelor's degree, plus less than 5 years of related work experience.
About CU Denver
Music ranks 30th of 32 bachelor's programs at CU Denver by first-year earnings. The top three are Electrical Engineering ($78,878), Nursing ($75,503), and Computer and Information Science ($75,137).
Other music bachelor's programs near Denver
Common questions
The median graduate earns $29,483 one year after graduating and $36,502 five years after. The median across music bachelor's programs in Colorado is $26,944.
The median federal loan balance is $27,000, which ranks 4th lowest of 5 music bachelor's programs in Colorado. That works out to about $286 a month over 10 years.
On the numbers, yes for most students. Debt equals 92% of first-year earnings, against a national median of 92%, and the share of borrowers in default two years into repayment is 10% or less.
Most do. 83% (83 of 100) were working in Colorado one year after graduating.
About this data
- Earnings and debt only include students who received federal financial aid (grants or loans).
- Earnings only count graduates who were working and not enrolled in more school. Graduates who went straight to further study are not included.
- Debt only includes federal loans. Private loans and credit cards are not counted.
- Some schools with several campuses report one combined figure for all of them. We count each of those schools once, and leave them out of Colorado comparisons when their main campus is in another state.
- Scorecard figures describe graduating classes from several years ago. BLS wages are from May 2025.
- School-level numbers like tuition, admission rate, and graduation rate are for the whole school, not the music program.
Sources
- U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard, field of study and institution files, June 2026 release
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections 2025 to 2035
- Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities, 2024
- NCES, CIP 2020 to SOC 2018 crosswalk, and IPEDS institution directory, 2024