Is Art One of the Worst Majors for Success?

Kiplinger published the "Worst College Majors for Your Career." And if you're thinking of a major in art, you must take a look at these rankings.

	Worst Major	Unemployment Rate for Recent Grads	Median Salary for Recent Grads	Likely to Work in Retail (Compared to Norm 1.0)
Anthropology	1	10.5%	$ 28,000	2.1
Fine Arts	2	12.6%	$ 30,000	1.8
Film & Photography	3	12.9%	$ 30,000	2.6
Philosophy & Religious Studies	4	10.8%	$ 30,000	2.0
Graphic Design	5	11.8%	$ 32,000	0.6
Studio Arts	6	11.1%	$ 35,900	2.3
Liberal Arts	7	9.2%	$ 30,000	1.8
Drama & Theater Arts	8	7.8%	$ 26,000	2.1
Sociology	9	8.6%	$ 32,000	1.4
English	10	9.2%	$ 32,000	1.4

Note:  the Kiplinger article contains even more data.

Kiplinger's should probably have titled their rankings:  the "Worst College Majors for Finding Jobs and for Making Decent Money."  Only measuring the value of a degree by the money you'll earn is a bit narrow.  Clearly, getting to do what you love for 40 hours a week for 40 years will improve your life happiness.  Yet, you would be a fool to belittle the importance of money, earnings, and job prospects in choosing your major. 

Six out of Kiplinger's ten "worst college majors" include artistic endeavors, ranging from acting (Drama & Theater Arts), to writing (English), and finally to making pretty pictures or 3D things (Graphic Design, Photo & Film, Studio Arts, and Fine Arts).  Majors that do not appear on this list tend to require less math and scientific rigor (with the exception of Anthropology and Sociology, but no science-only major made the list). I think that this absence underscores a rarely mentioned reality about many students who choose the "worst college majors."

First, the majors that made the list are generally easier than many other degrees.  Second, these majors are generally more fun.  Consequently, they attract many students who: 1) can't handle math and sciences, 2) love a good time, and 3) don't really understand what it means to invest in a college education. 

Thus, the Kiplinger's list would probably look very different if we could somehow remove from it the "bad" students – those who resist hard intellectual work (the lazy bums), those who mostly treat college as a great party (the party animals), and finally those who think it's cool to be an artist, but really have nothing to communicate or don't have a deep love for art (the posers).

If you don't recognize yourself in the descriptions above, your ability to succeed in an artistic career after college will look better than the depressing statistic in Kiplinger's study.  While choosing art as a career nearly guarantees more economic challenges than other professions, if you work hard (to be the best artist you can be and to sell your art), society will see you in a better light and generally reward you for it.

Does the Image in the Mirror Show You Art School Material?

Most people know the expression, "actions speak louder than words."  Yet, few listen to the meaning of their own actions.  Maybe it's because sometimes it can be brutal. 

Still, I often confront my college students to take an honest look at their actions, because I know it's really hard to become a working pro in art, and the sooner they know if they have what it takes, the better.  So why don't you try it?

If you're in high school and thinking that you want to go to art school to become an artist, let's examine your actions.  By actions, think of all the things that you do in the course of a day, a week, and during your free time.  Especially focus on the moments where you have choices of what to do.  These choices speak volumes, so listen to them. 

So, what do your actions tell you? 

Do you draw only or mostly when your high school art teacher gives you assignments? 

Do you doodle and draw only when you're "trapped," such as when you're stuck in a boring class? 

Do you draw much outside of school? 

Do you spend time drawing when most of your friends hang out, play video games, or interact online?

Do you draw much during weekends, holidays, and all the school breaks?

Do you get annoyed and possibly "bent out of joints" when a day goes by and you didn't get to draw? 

Do you have on-going and self-imposed art projects, and are you making weekly, if not daily progress on them without anyone pushing you?

If your actions reveal that you draw on your own, even when you could be doing other fun stuff, then you've got the artistic fiber.  However, if art is something you do mostly when instructed (say, by your teachers) or because there's nothing better you could do (when you're stuck in a boring class, and doodling is the only entertainment that won't get your teacher's scolding), then art for you is a diversion rather than a calling, and you should probably explore other areas for your college career.

For some of you, this realization may hurt.  Yet, it's important to have clarity when engaging in a long, difficult, and risky path.  And trying to become a professional artist is all of that:  long, difficult, risky, and more.  Yet, for people who "have it," it's a fantastic way of life.

The Easiest Art Schools to Discard

A damning report from the US Senate states that the for-profit schools spend more on marketing than on teaching, that their profits matter more than academics, and that recruitment counts more than graduations.  For-profit college spokespeople are trying to hit back hard, saying that all of this is non-sense.

Who should you believe?  Politicians or PR buffoons?

Time for...: COMMON SENSE.

Where does recruitment start in the 21^st century?  Online, right?  If you want info, what do you do?  You Google.

So go check out which schools show up at the top of a search under:  “art schools”

Did the results yield many of the best art schools in the country (such as this list)?  Or did you get mostly for-profit art schools?

Oh!  Maybe you don’t know which art schools are “for-profit.”  Easy.  Just type:  artschools.com (imagine that!  For-profit schools "own" artschools.com).

And what about artschool.com (singular version of “artschools.com”).  A-Ha!  That one is operated by … The Art Institute.  The leading for-profit art school.

Conclusion, that’s A LOT of lipstick on a pig.

So we’ve proven the first point:  the marketing assault of for-profit art schools decimates the marketing presence of non-profit art schools.

Is that enough to discredit for-profit art schools?  No.  Some have great results.  Yet, the best for-profit art schools have invested their efforts in turning out great artists, not in outspending everyone on search engine rankings.

In upcoming posts, I’ll address why most for-profit art schools are a bad investment (and how you can better spend your education dollars elsewhere!).

Tuition's Cancer Tumors

Last month, I received an internal e-mail wishing well to an administrator, who spent more than 10 years at Cal State Fullerton, and who received a promotion at another university.  It so happens that I haven't dealt much with that lady, but I remember her as a nice person.  So in this commentary is not so much about her as it is about a big problem in too many higher ed institutions that's causing your tuition to grow unnecessarily.

The e-mail listed all the offices where she worked during her years at Cal State Fullerton.  Some of them have names like:

- Bureau of Research Development

- Freshman Support & Resource Group

- Center for Community Involvement

- Partnership for Internships

- Bureau of University Initiatives, Research, and Industry Collaborations

- Student Life Association

- Grant-Writing Support Center for Staff and Faculty

(I've changed their names to emphasize the general problem, rather than to pick on any specific office;  yet most universities have lots and LOTS of these entities): 

Here's a little secret:  30 years ago or so, not half of those offices existed, and universities did just fine.  While these offices didn't seem necessary then, they are now staffed with people who often have graduate degrees and therefore get salaries in the mid-to-high five-figures (and more than $100,000 for the heads of these offices).  If you add up all these salaries, almost every college is spending millions of dollars on strangely-titled personnel considered unnecessary 30 years ago. 

Where does the money come to pay those salaries?  Your tuition.

(And from taxes – your taxes - in the case of public universities).

Some administrators will disagree, pointing out that some of these offices run on foundation money or endowment funds (money given by charitable organizations or generous donors).  But then, ask yourself, why isn't the university using that money for student grants or for the general budget, namely, to lower your tuition?!

If you don't like this, what can you do about it?  Next time you hear university officials complain about their expanding costs as the reason why tuition must rise, don't buy into their argument.  Instead, tell them to cut their bureaucracy and focus on the classes.  Write to them directly.  Write letters to the editors.  Call TV stations.  Facebook about it, Tweet it!  Make a ruckus!  

It's a BIG problem, but a recent minor success has proven that public shame can force administrators to be a little less wasteful.

An Art Degree Isn't a Job Guarantee

Take all your savings.  Borrow from future paychecks.  Get your art degree.  Pay for groceries with food stamps.

Sounds improbable? 

I'm sure several the several thousands of janitors with PhD's had other visions when they began their college careers.  Yet, from 2007 to 2010, three times as many PhD's needed food stamps and other kinds of welfare to get by. 

Today's latest unemployment figure of 8.2% highlights the nation's dismal economic shape despite the promises of a recovery if we borrowed trillions of dollars for "shovel-ready" projects.  In a bitter way, it is a useful reminder that an art education isn't a job guarantee and that making it as an artist is hard.

So how can you avoid spending money on an art degree that will land you on the food stamp homepage?  First, unless you're accepted in a top art school (and in my view, there are probably less than a dozen in the USA), admit that spending more than $20,000 a year on an art degree makes you look borderline stupid (but plenty of art degree mills love such kinds of fools!).

Second, learn to evaluate the return on investment of your education.  And it comes in two parts:

1) the cost of your education

2) the income generated by your education

We all know there is a chance that the second part, the income you get after art school, might be modest, and even frighteningly low when you're just starting.  So what you want to do is focus on the first part, and not fall for the Big Trap:  more expensive is always better.  Seriously.  More expensive art schools rarely get you better art profs or more brilliant art programs.  What more expensive will get you is glossier promotional brochures, shinier hallways, and vastly larger teams of paid recruiters.

On the other hand, what is certain is that the more bangs for the bucks you get from your art degree (that is, finding the most affordable, yet best art program suiting your learning goals), the less money you will spend, the less debt you will owe, and the higher your chances of making it and staying off food stamps after you get your first art sales and art jobs.

Taking Out Student Loans Doesn't Make You Too Big To Fail

Debt, loans, bonds, credit all share one hard truth.  It's called, "payback, baby!" – Lenny the Loan Shark's favorite phrase.  If you ever get money that's not yours, be it a car loan or credit card, you are exposing yourself to the world of debt repayment.  At best, that world's never fun, because the new car smell never lasts as long as your car loan's repayment schedule.  At worst, it's hell.  Exhibit A: the thousands of college grads who get more attention for struggling to pay back their debt rather than from their academic or professional achievements.

Unlike Wall Street banks, Greece or Spain, no one is anxious to bail you out.

This should be common sense, but it's not.

So when should an art student borrow money for college?

Two cases:  when needing to bridge over a small, short-term cash flow gap, or when knowing, with a very high probability, that the return on the borrowed money will exceed the interest payments.

We'll explore these options in later posts. 

Discount Rates on Art School Tuition?

The president of the Columbus College of Art & Design wants you to think that art school discount rates matter more than college sticker prices.  

Seriously?  

Dennison W. Griffith, the friendly looking CCAD president, defines the "discount rate" as "the ratio of financial aid given compared with the published tuition rate" (source: Columbus Dispatch, May 6, 2012, Op-Ed, "Some stats don't aid college search").  He's right that, nowadays, many schools offer lots of financial aid.  In fact, a lot more than in your parents' school days.  It's the direct result of skyrocketing tuition costs - kind of like pouring more sugar when the medicine keeps tasting worse.

And sure, during your college years, if you only look at the cash you put down every year versus the official tuition number, you may find yourself palling up with a glorious art school discount! 

For example, when Mr. Griffith says that the "net tuition paid by the average student [at CCAD] reflects a 38 percent discount off tuition," he's suggesting that instead of paying $27,504 per year, you could pay only $17,052 (if you're average, that is).  

A $10K+ savings, youthinks?!?  

Nooo, don't go screamin':  "higher ed on sale!"

What Mr. Griffith wants you to look past is how much of that financial aid consists of ...  
STUDENT LOANS!  

Gosh, those again...  Seriously, did you notice that nowhere in his op-ed, Mr. Griffiths breaks down how much of that aid is free money (grants, scholarships) versus shackle money (loans).

Therefore it's time for:  COMMON SENSE.

Common Sense says:

If Mr. Griffith could have boasted of big scholarships and plentiful grants covering lots of his students' tuition and making up the bulk of CCAD's "discount rate," he would have said it!!!

There.


For most students, too much of the "discount rate" is shackle money (loans).  And even with a 38% discount rate per year, the well-respected Columbus College of Art & Design is about $10,000 more than any CSU.  Save your money, don't start your art career poor!

OK, time for the bill:  the discount rate is the wrong place to start measuring the bangs for the bucks of an art school.