Dannielle Caldwell went to Belmont University in Nashville to major in music. But once she got there, she discovered the discipline of music therapy and immediately switched her major.
“I knew that I wanted to help people with music,” the 25-year-old tells CNBC Make It. After finishing her degree in 2021, she started working as a music therapist full-time.
“It is incredibly fulfilling because we get to impact clients in such great ways,” she says.
Music therapy is a clinical discipline that uses sound, instruments and lyrics to help patients of all ages with a variety of afflictions, from physical disabilities to emotional and mental health concerns. While not everyone with a music therapy degree may be working as a therapist, everyone who is a board-certified music therapist has a music therapy degree, per the profession’s requirements.
Studying music therapy in college seems to lead to a meaningful career — 95% of music therapy degree-holders say their job makes the world a better place, according to a recent Payscale report.
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However, while a music therapy degree tends to lead to a fulfilling career, the pay for those grads may not be as satisfactory. Just 30% of current music therapists said they can live comfortably on their music therapy income alone, according to a 2022 survey by the American Music Therapy Association.
In their first five years of working, music therapy degree-holders earn a median salary of $49,400, Payscale finds. That jumps to $64,900 with 10 years of experience. Among all college graduates ages 25 to 34, regardless of major, the median annual earnings were $66,600 in 2022, according to the latest available Census Bureau data.
Despite this financial outlook, Caldwell says she loves her job. Here’s why.
‘I would not trade it for a desk job’
Caldwell currently works in pediatric care with children ranging from 10 months to 16 years old at a private practice in Jacksonville, Florida.
Her work includes helping children reach developmental milestones like visual tracking, grasping and speech expression, as well as providing emotional support for kids and teens struggling with mental illnesses like depression and anxiety.
At one of her first jobs out of school, Caldwell earned just $40,000 a year. Now, three years into her career, she earns a little more than the early-career median, at about $57,000 a year.
“I love the work that I’m doing, I would not trade it for a desk job to be paid more,” she says.
Caldwell acknowledges several privileges have allowed her to live comfortably on her music therapist salary. Her family supported her throughout college, and she graduated without debt. Now married, she enjoys the benefits of a dual-income household and sharing living expenses with her husband.
The realities of a low-paying career
Of course, everyone’s personal situation is different.
As with any profession, pay for music therapists can vary based on employer, location and experience. Music therapists in Alaska earn an average salary of $61,354, the highest in the nation, compared with $38,664 on average in Florida, where salaries are the lowest, according to ZipRecruiter data.
“I have [single] friends who were able to live on their own from their music therapy salary,” Caldwell says. “And then I have friends who were paid $15 an hour for music therapy and had to have roommates or live with their families, and [living alone] was not possible.”
Just over 12% of music therapists hold multiple positions to earn a comfortable income, AMTA reports, and 18% say they supplement their music therapy income with a non-music therapy job.
‘One of the greatest things I’ll ever get to do’
Caldwell acknowledges that not everyone wants to make the sacrifices like living with roommates or working a side job that may be necessary to make it on a music therapist salary.
She’s hopeful, though, that with more advocacy and understanding, music therapy will be seen as an essential part of health care, and the financial prospects of its practitioners will improve.
“I think funding is a huge barrier in music therapy because we’re still researching it, still proving that everything that we do is evidence-based,” Caldwell says.
Years of research have proven music therapy’s effectiveness in many ways, but it’s still not as accepted as disciplines like physical therapy or psychotherapy. Advocates like Caldwell are working to raise awareness of music therapy’s benefits and provide more access to quality care.
“People may not know what [music therapy] is and equate it to entertainment or performance and equate it to fun,” she says. “In reality, we’re there to do a very specific job and meet these very specific goals.”
There are many challenges, but Caldwell says it’s all been worth it to watch her patients heal in real time. “Being with clients and seeing the impact of music therapy every single day is easily one of the greatest things I’ll ever get to do.”
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