Today, I was able to look at the latest Higher Education Arts Data Services (HEADS) Music Data Summaries 2011-2012. This survey is conducted for all of the National Association of  Schools of Music (NASM). There are about 636 public and private institutions who report statistical information to NASM.

When I posted my article, “Why Do We Grant So Many Trumpet Degrees?” on August 10, I made quite a few guesses about the numbers of trumpet students there were and how many degrees were conferred each year. Now that I have some concrete statistics on higher education trumpet study, I’d like to share that with you.

Not all 636 NASM schools offer trumpet degrees. 18 offer Associate’s degrees; 269 offer Bachelor’s degrees; 131 offer Master’s degrees; and 47 offer Doctoral degrees. I was not able to find out the total number of institutions that offer some trumpet degree, but with a little common sense, I was able to make a good guess. Because most master’s degree programs offer bachelor’s degrees, and because most doctoral programs offer both the master’s and bachelor’s degrees, I assume that there are about 270 trumpet degree-granting institutions in the U. S–that reported statistics for the HEADS. The following chart shows the break down of trumpet majors in these institutions:

You might want to know the statistics of total music major enrollment at all 636 music institutions: summer enrollment was 16,676, fall semester enrollment was 116,351 and the total music degrees conferred were 22,721.

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In addition, demographics of doctoral trumpet students were presented in the study:

1. In 19 institutions that granted doctoral degrees (and reported to HEADS on demographics) this last year, there were 27 trumpet degrees given (this is slightly more than reported above because some institutions may not report all pertinent data). Of these 27 graduates, 1 (3.7%) was a black male, 1 (3.7%) was a Hispanic male, 23 (85%) were white, non-hispanic males, 1 (3.7%) was a white female and 1 (3.7%) was an Asian male.
2. In 43 institutions reported on enrolling a total of 136 doctoral trumpet students (again this is slightly different that reported above because some institutions may not report all data), 4 (2.9%) were black males, 1 (0.7%) was a Pacific islander female, 5 (3.7%) were Hispanic males, 83 (61%) were white males, 17 (12.5%) were white females, 4 (2.9%) were Asian males, 2 (1.5%) were Asian females, 17 (12.5%) were “other/race unknown” males and 3 (2.2%) were “other/race unknown”females.

There were no American Indian or Alaskan Native trumpeters in doctoral programs. The following chart compares these demographics with U.S. demographics on race as a whole: