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.

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.