I came upon an article the other day, shared by a fellow singer, which reported on the entire first-year class of seven MFA students at the University of Southern California leaving their program due to various grievances they had with the school. Their most prominent complaints revolve around their belief that the school “did not value the Program’s faculty structure, pedagogy or standing in the arts community,” which presumably lead to the departure of two noteworthy faculty members and administrators of the program. This pedagogical loss, paired with a noteworthy loss of tuition subsidization and promised teaching opportunities, led to these students voicing their discontent multiple times, and ultimately led to their departure from the program.
Before I dive further into the issues involved here, and how these issues apply to other artists, graduate students, and the values of our country at large, I’d like to take a moment and congratulate these students on making such a bold move. Whether or not one agrees with the statement they are making, it is powerful to have any group take unanimous peaceful action in attempt to create an impact and create a dialogue. For that, I believe these students deserve praise.
Now, there are many issues at play here, and I’d like to break them down in as palatable of a way as possible. Although I, myself, have been incredibly privileged and fortunate in the opportunities lent to me, both within the institutions I attended and through my opportunity to attend them, I know too many others who strongly identify with the grievances these students present. It would be, therefore, all too easy to purely empathize with the students here. I think the issue goes much deeper than the student experience though, and this is what I wish to address.
The Immediate Issues
So first, let’s take a deeper look at their grievances, and consider the value of the education they were promised compared to the value of a master’s degree and of the particular education they walked out on.
Why do we attend graduate school in the first place? There are plenty of reasons. Ultimately, most people would probably agree that one goes to graduate school to increase their earning potential by enhancing their practical and marketable skills and earning proof of such, as well as widening their network of professionals within their field.
With that said, let’s take a look at what these students stated as their reasons for attending USC:
“The Roski MFA Program that attracted us was intimate and exceptionally well-funded; all students graduated with two years of teaching experience and very little to no debt. We were fully aware of the scarcity of, and the paucity of compensation for, most teaching jobs, so this program seemed exemplary in creating a structure that acknowledged these economic and pedagogical realities.”
So far, their purpose for attending seems to be in line with the one I’ve set up. This means that when their desired faculty and administration left the program, supposedly due to a lack of “pedagogical understanding”, so did a large part of the students’ desired training and networking opportunities. When they lost the opportunity to teach as well in their first year, there goes more training they had sought out.
They also bring up an excellent point about debt. Graduating with a degree in the arts can be especially burdensome in terms of financial payoff due to the fickle nature of job prospects as a freelancer or teacher. The school, in response to the departure of these students, claimed the following:
“The USC Roski MFA program remains one of the most generously funded programs in the country. These students would have received a financial package worth at least 90 percent of tuition costs in scholarships and TAships.”
Let’s assume that the following is true: 1. They are the most generously funded programs in the country and 2. That the students would have received a financial package worth exactly 90% of tuition costs. So let’s take a look at how much debt these students will be walking out with after their first year, knowing that this is one of the best opportunities in the country, financially-speaking, for them.
Covering 90% of tuition costs means that the student must pay 10% of their tuition. The USC website lists graduate tuition at $23,781 per semester, meaning $47,562 for the year, which does not include room, board, and other expenses. 10% of this equals $4,756.
Let’s assume that they couldn’t pay that off right away, and needed to take out a loan (which would be in addition to any outstanding loans they may have from their undergraduate institution). The interest rate for a direct unsubsidized loan, the only kind of government loan a graduate student can receive, in the 2014-2015 school year is a whopping 6.21%, significantly higher than the interest rate for undergraduates at 4.66% (this, by the way, highlights some of the ways that borrowing as a graduate student differs from borrowing as an undergraduate). Using the Federal Student Aid Repayment Estimator, we can calculate how much more a student will have to pay in interest. Then by taking the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ calculated median pay for studio artists, $44,380, and cutting it in half to $22,190 (since this seems much more likely for a recent graduate), the lowest amount of interest they are likely to pay, using a standard payment plan, is $1,638, totaling $6,394 in accumulated debt.
This is exhausting just to think about. It’s even more exhausting to think that $6,394 is the best scenario for most artists out there, for one year, without room and board! If they had stayed, this would, at the very least, have doubled to $12,788. Many, many more artists out there end up in much more debt than this over just their tuition though.
Still, to throw a bone to the university, $4,756 is a fair amount of money, and it’s certainly a fair amount of money to give to not one, but seven students. For these seven students, it would amount of $33,292 that the university would hope to bring in. This is still less than giving the other 90% of tuition to just one student, but still sizeable. I’m not saying by any means that the students should have just accepted this truth and been grateful. On the contrary, I’m saying their actions have opened up discussions a much larger problem out there.
The Problem (with a capital “P”)
Thinking like this, in terms of who deserves more money from whom for what, is where The Problem begins. Yes, you read that correctly, The Problem. What is The Problem, you ask?
The Problem is that the struggle for funding, for support, for a better educational system cycles within these smaller systems of higher education, and not out into the world at large, where The Problem really exists. Because ultimately, The Problem is not just a problem of how we fund our schools, or how do artists make enough money to further their educations. The Problem is a problem of Value; the fact that our society, at large, does not truly value education or artists.
For all of the politicians out there who are reading this right now (which is probably zero), did you just scream at me, “Of course we value education!”? If so, I have two questions in response: 1. Then why do colleges and universities still not have enough money and resources to support their students? and 2. Did you just gloss over the artists I mentioned as well?
In case you can’t answer #1 (and by the way, the answer to #2 is “yes”), let me help you out here:
“If you want to know a person’s real values, look how they spend their time and money.” – Michael Josephson
From the National Priorities Project
Alright Politician, I’ll give you this: the Education budget is on there… at 2%, being overshadowed by that 16% Military budget. So I guess you care a little. Though, this is also the President’s proposed budget, not yours. Also, there’s no guarantee that this is how it’s going to play out. Proposed, after all, does not mean guaranteed.
It should be noted, in fairness, that USC is a private school, and many schools and arts institutions rely on private funding (see the chart above as a reminder about why). Yet neither group is receiving the funding they need from the private sector either, evident through countless budget cuts, closures, and so on. Perhaps this is why the government does not spend a lot on either cause; we, the people, elect the government, so presumably, our government spending would reflect our private spending as well.
The Point
So what am I saying here? Ultimately, again, The Problem all comes down to value. For whatever reason, America does not value education, the arts, or education for the arts. It doesn’t spend money on these things. It doesn’t provide support for students or artists as individuals. Many people in our society contest that those who go back to school or pursue a career in the arts are asking for the financial hardships that are brought upon them.
Why is this true? Why don’t Americans value the arts and education? That’s a post for another time. In the meantime, I hope you will consider this from everything I’ve said: If you believe in The Problem, that artists are generally unable to receive the kind of education and support they need to add to the worth of their community, that higher education is unable to provide this kind of instruction and opportunity to its students, and that both sides would be better served by bringing this issue to the American government and society at large rather than duking it out with each other, I hope you will go out there and work to resolve it as well.
Do you believe in The Problem? What ideas do you have to solve it? How have you seen this issues play out in your own life? These discussions need to happen somewhere, and I’d be thrilled if they happened here.