The 25 Best Drama Schools in the World, 2025 Ranked

While drama schools have largely emerged from the shadow of COVID-19, many are now in the midst of figuring out how to respond to different audience behaviors post-pandemic, funding changes and the evolving needs of an arts education. Amid this changing environment, institutions have been updating their curricula to better prepare their students and put a greater emphasis on on-camera training and on actors creating their own work. And as several programs maintain (or try to grow) tuition-free models, the rising cost of education continues to be a significant factor for students pursuing a career in performing arts.

THR spoke with industry members and educators to determine its ranking of the best schools for an acting degree while weighing factors including overall training, cost, alumni success and industry connections. When applicable, tuition is listed on an annualized basis for the upcoming year and does not include housing and other fees.

Juilliard

NEW YORK CITY

The prestigious drama school’s MFA program became tuition-free as of last year and launched a campaign this spring to gradually make its bachelor program tuition-free across all disciplines, with plans to increase the number of tuition-free students each year. Going tuition-free for the drama MFA last year already led to a surge in applications, says Evan Yionoulis, dean and director of the drama program. But getting in is tough: Juilliard only accepts classes of 18 acting students each year, roughly split between MFA and BFA students, with attendees from both degree programs learning together across the four-year program. In addition to first-class conservatory-style training, the school offers students the chance to star in 15-minute films written by alumni of the school; to participate in workshops with experts in the field (including Tony-winning musical theater composer Jeanine Tesori); and to take part in an annual playwriting festival. The school also holds community meetings roughly every other week with charities and artists including Robert Downey Jr., Meredith Monk and Maulik Pancholy. “Juilliard is very dedicated to service and its artists being connected to the community and the global community,” Yionoulis says. The list of famous alumni is long and includes Jessica Chastain, Adam Driver and Viola Davis, but recent alumni successes have included Jayme Lawson, who appeared in Sinners; David Corenswet, the Man of Steel himself in James Gunn’s upcoming Superman; and Ella Beatty, who recently co-starred off-Broadway in Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes opposite Hugh Jackman. Undergraduate tuition is currently $55,500.

Yale

NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT

The David Geffen School of Drama’s MFA program remains tuition-free, with a need-based living stipend, and very popular, with an all-time high of applications last year (but only 1.2 percent making the cut for the class of 16 acting students). As of last year, the drama school has returned to a three-year program after having converted to four years to make up for in-person learning lost during the pandemic. In addition to its classical theater repertoire, which includes production work at Yale Rep, the school has added classes that focus on camerawork and self-taping. “Self-taping is essentially now the industry norm,” says dean James Bundy. “So that’s a really important skill for alumni to have.” Those alumni have included Meryl Streep and Paul Giamatti, along with recent graduates like The Pitt‘s Patrick Ball and The Sex Lives of College Girls‘ Ilia Paulino. Yale is in the process of building a new drama school building, which will house Yale Rep, the grad and undergrad programs, and is set for groundbreaking in 2026. Bundy will retire as dean in June 2026 after two decades in the role, and a new search committee is in the process of finding a successor.

University of North Carolina School of the Arts

WINSTON-SALEM

John Langs, formerly the artistic director of ACT Contemporary Theatre in Seattle and a school alum, took over as UNCSA’s dean of the strong undergraduate drama program last year and has focused the curriculum on three initiatives: on-camera training, new work and classical repertoire. In their third and fourth years, students perform several classical works in repertory during the spring, which leaves the rest of the year open for contemporary works. There’s also been a renewed push for original work from students thanks in part to a $1 million gift from Tony Award-winning director and alum Joe Mantello (other notable alumni include Mary-Louise Parker and The White Lotus‘ Jake Lacy). “This institution has pivoted to really training for the 21st century, which means gearing the students up for all of the platforms that they’re able to send out their work on right now,” Langs says.

The program auditions 900 students a year and accepts 30, who end up doing showcases in New York, Chicago, Atlanta and L.A., with industry professionals from each city visiting the school throughout the year. In-state tuition is $6,497, while out-of-state is $24,231, with scholarship opportunities.

Carnegie Mellon

PITTSBURGH

Carnegie Mellon had more than 50 alumni working on Broadway this past season, including the stars of the musical Buena Vista Social Club: Tony winner Natalie Venetia Belcon, playing Cuban singer Omara, and Isa Antonetti, playing young Omara. Alum Leslie Odom Jr. will return to Hamilton this fall, and alumnus Stephen Schwartz, the composer of Wicked, had a pretty big year. The school’s conservatory-style undergraduate curriculum sees acting and music theater students taking the same core curriculum in acting, moving and speech before segueing into more specialized areas. The program recently got more space with the acquisition of the entire Purnell Center for the Arts. CMU admits 12 acting and 12 musical theater students each year, with an annual tuition of $67,020.

Royal Academy of Dramatic Art

LONDON

The renowned London conservatory, which has trained the likes of Kenneth Branagh, Cynthia Erivo (a vp of the school) and Aimee Lou Wood, is in its 120th year as an institution, with its classical training programming including 13 stage productions, two acting showcases, five short films and a well-being service, which helps students focus on their mental health during the course of their three years of undergraduate study. The school is adding four new masters courses starting in 2025, including playwriting, and piloting short courses in New York to introduce American students to RADA’s training. Branagh, a former president of the school, recently led an all-RADA cast of King Lear in a production that transferred from the West End to off-Broadway. RADA accepts 28 undergrads per year. Tuition is close to $34,000 a year for international students.

London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art

LONDON

The oldest drama school on the British Isles offers three-year undergrad degrees in acting as well as graduate degrees, including a musical theater concentration. The school accepts 32 undergraduate acting students per year who are divided into two classes of 16 to learn classical and contemporary training, in addition to learning within LAMDA’s state-of-the-art virtual production studio spaces. Students have ranked the undergraduate program highly, with the school receiving top marks in the country’s national student survey for the second year in a row, including in quality of teaching and learning opportunities. In January, the academy opened offices and studios in Manhattan in order to offer courses and support U.S.-based LAMDA graduates. Alumni include John Lithgow, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tony-nominated actor Gabby Beans. Tuition for the undergrad program is about $34,000 and about the same for its MFA acting program, with more for other concentrations.

New York University

NEW YORK CITY

Located in the heart of Manhattan, NYU benefits from access to industry opportunities and working professionals. The school welcomed a freshman class of 350 students last year who are split up into professional training studios related to different acting techniques and theater companies. In turn, NYU Tisch has been the most represented school on Broadway for the past three years in a row and boasts alumni like Elizabeth Olsen, Rachel Brosnahan and Kristen Bell. The prestigious three-year graduate acting program accepts 16 students annually, and students participate in world premieres of plays from award-winning playwrights. The school launched an Innovation Studio this spring to help actors engage with new theater technologies and has seen its grad actors work with the new Martin Scorsese Virtual Production Center on motion capture. Undergraduate tuition is $72,000 — though the school will cover tuition for all four years for students who begin at the school with family income under $100,000 — and $79,000 for the grad program with need-based scholarships.

University of Michigan

ANN ARBOR

The school offers one of the top musical theater programs in the world, now led by longtime faculty member Cynthia Kortman Westphal, who was named chair of the department in 2024, as well as a strong acting program. Alumni fill the Broadway stages, including Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen, who star opposite each other in Maybe Happy Ending (which just won best musical at the Tonys and netted Criss lead actor in a musical), and Wesley Wray, featured in Buena Vista Social Club and set to graduate in 2026. Other notable alumni include Emily in Paris star Ashley Park, The Four Seasons and Just in Time actress Erika Henningsen and Dear Evan Hansen composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (who are recent EGOT winners). The school accepts about 24 students a year into its musical theater program and has an annual tuition of $61,422 for out-of-state and $18,104 in-state.

Guildhall

LONDON

With alumni including Michaela Coel, Lily James and Daniel Craig, the three-year undergraduate program spends the first two years working with students on technique, including acting on camera, movement and voice, before spending most of the third year performing for the public and industry professionals, writing and performing self-devised work and learning from industry experts about the transition to professional life. The BA Acting course is made up of about 28 students each year who also have opportunities to collaborate with other departments and participate in workshops throughout Europe. Tuition is close to $34,000 annually for international students.

UC San Diego

SAN DIEGO

The MFA program at UCSD provides graduate students with three years of free tuition and fees and the opportunity to perform in productions at the prestigious La Jolla Playhouse. The school accepts eight actors every other year who also take part in productions at the school as well as in the Wagner New Play Festival, which can serve as a launching pad for the school’s graduate playwrights, directors and actors. All of this means that for each class, “the casting opportunities are significant and intensive,” according to Lisa Portes, chair of the department of Theatre and Dance. Portes, formerly of DePaul, took over as chair in 2024 and has overhauled the school’s undergraduate theater program, with plans to gradually grow the graduate acting cohorts and other disciplines. Other new hires include accent and dialogue coach Andrea Caban and acting teacher Aysan Celik of The Civilians theater troupe.

The Old Globe and USD

SAN DIEGO

The two-year MFA program already was tuition-free, but starting in the fall, the existing monthly living stipends will nearly double (to more than $2,000 a month) for the entirety of the program thanks to a gift from philanthropist Darlene Marcos Shiley. Seven students are accepted per year to the classical training program, which is partnered with the Old Globe Theatre, where students can work on professional productions and travel to London to learn from Shakespeare’s namesake and the British American Drama Academy. Recent hires include Sherri Barber, artistic director of Diversionary Theatre, and Jesse Marchese, director of development at the theater, to teach text and context classes.

University of Southern California

LOS ANGELES

USC’s MFA acting program, which selects eight students per year, is tuition-free as of fall 2024, and students have been learning and rehearsing at the newly named and recently opened Dick Wolf Drama Center. The school offers graduate and undergrad degrees, with the Trojan faculty made up of working professionals, including new hires Wayne Brady, who is teaching courses on improvisation for the camera, and actor-creator Tomm Polos, who is helping students navigate how to make a living in the creative economy. The school features a dedicated professional development center that offers students free headshots, audition preparation with faculty and management-level support to students and recent graduates. Undergraduate tuition is just above $73,000, but the school offers a generous sum of financial aid.

UCLA

LOS ANGELES

The very centrally located undergraduate program in Westwood offers close proximity to the entertainment industry and a bachelor in arts with an acting emphasis, where students can take a five-quarter sequence of acting, voice and movement classes. In addition to acting in productions, UCLA takes an interdisciplinary approach to its training, with students learning across theater, film and television (about 65 applicants are accepted each year across all disciplines). The school’s master’s program is still on pause and not accepting new admissions, but the undergrad curriculum has been updated to provide clearer progression in the training areas and to include a new course on how to produce a theatrical season. Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Celine Parreñas Shimizu (2020’s The Celine Archive) will take over as the school’s new dean starting July 1. Annual in-state tuition is just under $19,500, and out-of-state is just under $54,000.

National Institute of Dramatic Art

KENSINGTON, AUSTRALIA

The school that taught recent Tony winner Sarah Snook, Cate Blanchett and Bridgerton‘s up-and-coming star Yerin Ha offers a three-year undergraduate acting program that has recently been updated to incorporate a greater understanding of how knowledge and practice from First Nations, the first people to live in Australia, can be used in acting training. NIDA also launched a Future Centre in 2024 to help acting students work with emerging technologies. The institute, which has a conservatoire-based method of training, accepts 24 students per year for its BFA acting program, with an annual tuition fee of just over $11,000 for domestic students.

Columbia University

NEW YORK CITY

Renowned instructor Ron Van Lieu has returned to the Columbia MFA program to teach first-year actors in addition to continuing to teach at Yale. The school benefits from its location and partnerships with nearby theaters and studios as well as its working faculty, with the program led jointly by an actor, Peter Jay Fernandez, and a casting director, James Calleri. The focus is on an interdisciplinary approach that pairs students across the theater disciplines together in the hopes of forming long-lasting artistic relationships. In the fall, a new course will pair MFA actors and filmmakers. Last year, tuition was just under $75,000 annually for the first two years and about $6,000 for the third. The program accepts 16 students each year.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

CHAPEL HILL

The school’s MFA program accepts six to eight actors every other year who work closely with the professional PlayMakers Repertory Company and can take part in its productions. All students receive a teaching assistant package, which includes a stipend, tuition waiver and health insurance benefits. In the last year of the program, actors are paired with a mentor, film a showcase and spend a week in New York in workshops with industry professionals. Alumni include Carey Cox, a series regular on The Handmaid’s Tale, and Myles Bullock, who can be seen in the new Prison Break series reboot.

Savannah College of Art and Design

SAVANNAH, GEORGIA

The undergraduate school of film and acting features an 11-acre backlot, a multicamera soundstage — with two more set to open by fall 2026 — and a 1,200-seat theater for musical productions, augmenting its real-world training model. Each year, SCAD acting students star in a university-sponsored sitcom and have been taking part in a horror anthology, both of which involve students from other disciplines. Additionally, the school boasts two professionally run on-site casting offices (with one in Atlanta), which have helped place students in projects such as Juror #2, May December, XO, Kitty and more. The annual SCAD Savannah Film Festival brings industry figures and Oscar winners to the students, while Leslie Odom Jr. taught an acting course this spring. Tuition is $42,165.

Case Western Reserve/Cleveland Play House

CLEVELAND

The MFA program works closely with the professional Cleveland Play House, offering all students principal roles there and giving them admission into Actors’ Equity. The three-year program provides the eight actors it accepts every other year with a full tuition waiver, free health care and a living stipend. Students have a full two semesters of professional development and business orientation to prepare them for the real world, with all third-year students also creating and performing a solo show. The program has been holding showcases in New York with UC San Diego in addition to filming the showcase and sending it to industry members.

Northwestern University

EVANSTON, ILLINOIS

The Chicago-area school trained Kathryn Hahn, Greta Lee and current student Sarah Bock, who plays Miss Huang on Severance. Several faculty members have strong connections to the nearby theater scene, including Steppenwolf, and to Broadway, with Tony Award winner KO leading workshops for musical theater students. Mark H., who specializes in American and African diasporic performance and physical theaters, is a new faculty addition. The school offers an undergrad theater program, accepting about 100 students per year, and a two-year grad program, with tuition for undergraduates just under $70,000 last year.

Syracuse University

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK

The strong musical theater and acting programs offer conservatory-style training for 23 musical theater and 23 acting students each year as well as opportunities to work with the professional theater, Syracuse Stage, and to take part in a semester-long study in New York, Los Angeles or London. The school has made it a priority to expand its courses in acting for the camera and new media, content creation and solo performance and community-engaged theater. Eleanor Holdridge, who most recently chaired the drama department at the Catholic University of America, will assume the chair of the department starting July 1. Undergraduate tuition is $66,580.

Purchase College, SUNY

PURCHASE, NEW YORK

About 16 students are chosen each year for the SUNY BFA program, which has trained the likes of Parker Posey, Stanley Tucci, Chris Perfetti and several recent graduates who have been featured on Broadway’s stages. The school benefits from its proximity to New York City as well as its faculty who work on Broadway and in film and TV. Students are cast in at least 10 productions during their training and are able to perform in state-of-the-art black box theaters, a Broadway-style performing arts center and in filmed productions. Training ends with a filmed and live senior showcase in New York. In-state tuition is just above $7,000, while out-of-state is just above $17,000. However, New Yorkers with family income of less than $125,000 can qualify for free tuition.

Texas State University

SAN MARCOS, TEXAS

The school’s undergraduate musical theater program is tuition-free and accepts about 14 students per year. Many recent alumni of the school — which also includes an acting degree, under the new title of bachelor of fine arts in acting for stage and screen — can be seen onscreen and on Broadway stages, including Ashlyn Maddox, featured in Netflix’s The Four Seasons as Tina Fey and Will Forte’s daughter; Shelby Acosta, starring in Real Women Have Curves on Broadway; Bella Coppola, who starred in this season’s Smash on Broadway; and Roberta Colindrez, who appeared in the Netflix series Eric. Kiira Schmidt Carper, formerly a faculty member at Syracuse, is joining the faculty this summer as co-head of the musical theater program.

Elon University

ELON, NORTH CAROLINA

Elon’s strong musical theater program accepts about 14 to 16 students annually and has many alumni on national tours and Broadway, including Taylor Trensch, a Tony nominee for this season’s Floyd Collins, and Grant Gustin, who led last season’s Water for Elephants. The university helps students secure professional theater work during the summer and hosts a senior casting series in which the graduating class performs for top agents and casting directors in the entertainment industry, gaining feedback and many garnering professional representation. Some classes also perform a filmed or New York showcase. Tuition is close to $49,000.

Penn State

STATE COLLEGE, PENNSYLVANIA

Several alumni from Penn State’s musical theater program have landed on national tours and on Broadway, including Jasmine Forsberg and Maria Wirries, who are both featured in Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends, and Caroline Bowman, a lead in this season’s Smash. The program accepts 12 to 14 undergrad students a year. A. Kikora Franklin, a dancer and choreographer who is a longtime member of the faculty, was named interim director of the school in August for a two-year term. Undergraduate tuition and fees, which also includes an acting major, were about $20,000 in-state last year and $42,000 for out-of-state.

Rutgers University

NEW BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY

Sebastian Stan trained at this New Jersey institution, which has transitioned from a three-and-a-half-year program to a four-year program, and sees undergrad acting students visiting London and studying at Shakespeare’s Globe in the fall of their fourth year. David P. Gordon took over as chair of the theater department in July 2024. The school accepts classes of about 50 and is in the process of creating more performance venues for student-initiated productions. Rutgers’s location means that students are able to regularly work with industry professionals who come in as guest artists as well as access opportunities in New York. In-state tuition is $14,222, and out-of-state is around $33,734.

This story appeared in the June 18 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.