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Serious question: how does a parent deal with their high school kids wanting to pursue college in a field with a low probability of high lifetime earnings (art,

Serious question: how does a parent deal with their high school kids wanting to pursue college in a field with a low probability of high lifetime earnings (art, theatre etc.) ? Especially when they are middle class without generational wealth to insulate themselves

dpcan 7y ago
My son went to college for Physics. I stressed to him that getting a high paying career in Physics with all the competition out there will be like landing a major role in a movie, he'll need to be the best of the best, and still be ready for rejection, possibly putting him into a situation where he'll take any job to stay afloat. It took him 4 months in college before discovering an Engineering field he was more interested in than Physics. It wasn't my fear-speak that did it, he just discovered how interesting it was on his own and now wants to pursue it. My sigh of relief could be heard throughout the galaxy. We are also at a state school and paying all of his college expenses out of pocket except for books and a small stipend of financial aid. So, being in a career that would yield a high paying job after he left school was very important to us.
jki275 7y ago
Just say no.
danharaj 7y ago
Ask them to double major?
- wavefunction 7y ago
  Or pick up a trade instead of a second degree. I think it might be easier to structure time for your artistic passions with a trade day job than a white-collar day job but I might be biased by on-call duty.
  - wainstead 7y ago
    Actually, this is excellent advice. Many of the people I know who went through art programs and hung out in the art scene later applied their aesthetics to things like the construction trade (fashioning complex plaster jobs, painting) or started some kind of small time manufacturing.
- vsskanth 7y ago
  Good suggestion. Being from India where double majors aren't a thing, it didn't strike me. Thanks.
criddell 7y ago
I've suggested to my kids that they study two separate areas. I think it makes you stand out in a very good way if, for example, you have a dual computer science / art history degree. I'm lucky though because my kids are dual US-Canada citizens. They can go to university in Canada and it's very inexpensive.
- starpilot 7y ago
  I asked a mechanical engineer in hiring if a double major on a resume made any difference to him. He said that if the major was not related to engineering, he really didn't care about it. They're paying you to be an engineer, nothing more. I studied Russian and in aerospace engineering in the US, employers absolutely did not care about it. I now resent the time/money spent on that coursework, and wish I had taken stats or CS, maybe dabbling in Russian on my own time.
  - itronitron 7y ago
    having more than one degree won't help someone get a job, but it will help that person succeed in their career
  - baylisscg 7y ago
    When you hybridise like that it’s up to you to highlight the benefits. As you point out it’s much easier to do that with closely related fields. You need to have an idea of what the one field brings to the other. If you don’t know and can’t articulate that how is the hiring manager supposed to?
vidanay 7y ago
Drop the "follow your dreams" rhetoric and have a serious discussion with them about the costs of life and lifestyles. If they want to live in a 6000 sq ft house in Malibu, then they shouldn't get a degree in 5th Century Aerobics.
- non-entity 7y ago
  > If they want to live in a 6000 sq ft house in Malibu, then they shouldn't get a degree in 5th Century Aerobics. I mean if that's what they want, you might as well tell them to be born into another family because you'll never enough for that as a wage worker regardless of the degree.
  - refurb 7y ago
    Doctors and lawyers could afford a house in Malibu and they are wage workers.
    - nugget 7y ago
      The white collar professionals who can afford these types of areas are usually much more like entrepreneurs than individual practitioners of their craft.
      - vidanay 7y ago
        And they have a relevant education.
    - falcolas 7y ago
      Not all doctors. Not all lawyers. Only the cream of the crop in those respective fields, and only after 20+ years in the field. Of course, that assumes a normal mortgage, with no “payments go to interest only” or other malarkey.
      - HarryHirsch 7y ago
        But to be able to play at the top of the field you'll have to have attended something like Penn Law or Yale Medicine. SUNY Downstate won't cut it.
sesuximo 7y ago
Take as many gap years being an artist as you want. The degree won't help much in pure arts anyway maybe the 529 will grow in that time anyway
- mmmBacon 7y ago
  The average rate of return in 529s is about 3%.
xwdv 7y ago
This happens to parents that don’t discuss the importance of having money in life. Also happens when kids get little to no financial education. The kids grow up thinking pursuing your passions and dreams is more important than accumulating money. And it feels so good and right until you find yourself broke and poor and your passion is gone, and you think life just sucks. It takes no effort to throw down a spreadsheet. List their yearly earnings for the rest of their life. Throw in expenses like mortgages, vacations, food, then add in kids and family, medical emergencies, show them just how poor they will be if they go down the path of their shitty career. Many kids may be left wide eyed when they accept these numbers are true. There’s no extra money hidden away, no big windfall waiting to come out and propel them up the class ladder. This is it, this is their life. Good luck.
- TomVDB 7y ago
  Your first paragraph is absolutist, judgemental, and, frankly, very naive. Our household has very open finances. We have dinner table talks about dollar cost averaging, compounded growth, and investing in broad mutual funds. Kids have a bank account with debit card at 14, and a personal Vanguard account at 18, as well as a Roth IRA in which we match their taxable earnings. And the kids know that making money is hard: they tutor, they create their own Kickstarter campaigns, they work as a cashier for extras. They know how to make a budget and what things cost. But no amount of your discussion or financial education is going change the mind of a very determined, strong headed youngster who “doesn’t want to live in the bubble of Silicon Valley anyway” and wants to pursue a non-technical creative course of live.
  - pnutjam 7y ago
    Alot of your points, show an upper middle class lifestyle. Your kids probably live in a bubble with other similar kids. You need to expose them to people who have made bad decisions. Seeing how people live can be very illustrative.
  - xwdv 7y ago
    Well then I just hope that youngster is also prepared to find some creative ways to make money.
appleiigs 7y ago
Just have them work the numbers out. Specifically create monthly budget after they graduate. Salary expectations, rent/mortgage, student debt, taxes, transportation, food, etc.
hajile 7y ago
Does art school make a person a better artist? I would argue not really -- especially in a day in age where so much advanced art instruction is available for free. When a company or person wants to commission you, do they look at your degree or your portfolio? The only real benefit of art college is more contacts to sell on your personality. $300,000 for that $75,000/yr college is a huge marketing budget for someone not proven to be a success. That money would be much better spent establishing an art studio and working on a portfolio. At least if they aren't very successful, some of the loss can be recovered. The same idea goes for most art degrees in one form or another.
- criddell 7y ago
  > Does art school make a person a better artist? It certainly isn't automatic but a motivated student can get a lot out of the experience.
- gen220 7y ago
  My girlfriend and I have had this discussion a lot, because she went to a top tier art school. I think you might be underrating three factors in your reasoning: One is the value of very direct feedback and guidance from seasoned, respected professionals. The class sizes in top art programs are very small, and most classes have a frequent, intense “critique” portion where the professor and students tear apart each others’ work. It’s like 3 years of intense code review from other talented programmers, led by a staff engineer. It’s hard to put a sticker price on this, because you largely get out what you put in, but it’s immense and I’d argue unique to a top tier art school. The second is that you’re living in a high pressure environment of professors and peers who always seem to be pushing you to be better in some dimension. It’s not conducive for everyone, but if you have a strong competitive drive, it can make you very productive. Finally, the fundamentals in design and art are insanely important. My girlfriend took 4 semesters of typography, because the ROI there is legitimately defensible. Most people skip this stuff when they’re self teaching, and it shows to people who know better. You’re right that portfolios are of paramount importance, but good companies will make you defend your portfolio pieces, and ask you what you’d do differently with different constraints or resources. An art school training will humble you to the idea that there is another way, and arm you with ideas for alternative solutions. It’s subtle, but it comes out in interviews and on the job. I’d argue it’s similar to software engineering in that way.
TomVDB 7y ago
We are in this now. First year in college, still undecided what to do, but interested in something design/art/writing. Our suggestions to choose something that might be profitable was a huge stress factor that pushed her towards depression and we decided to back off. She had always surprised us in a good way, and she has proven to be very good a connecting with people, organizing, making things work. I think she’ll be fine eventually. We are not generationally wealthy, but tech has made us rich enough afford the college tuition without too much pain. Not everyone can or wants to be an engineer.
- puranjay 7y ago
  Design offers an easy path to a profitable career. A specialization in UX design would easily earn your child a lucrative position in any tech company. Even writing - something I pursued - offers a path to a stable career if you move towards copywriting and content. A few years in an agency as a copywriter and all sorts of options open up, some highly lucrative ones (creative director/strategist).
SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
I’m pretty sympathetic to the perspective that the solution is not dealing with it. “I want to go to art school” is at the same level as “I want a pony” or “I’m gonna marry a rich girl”; it’s not originally intended as a serious life plan, and you’ll only start to see it as one if the people around you encourage it.
- criddell 7y ago
  I don't see anything wrong with going to school for an education rather than training. Frankly, I wish there were more kids working on a liberal and fine arts education. It's one of the reasons I'm a big fan of the free-college-for-all plans being pushed by some politicians.
  - 8bitsrule 7y ago
    I don't either. Most of the life-long value I got from college was not in the concentrations I was required to choose from. The real value was in the broad exposure to many disciplines, endeavors and POVs. Especially important in that were the hundreds of talented people I got to talk with ... a valuable extracurricular available at many schools. Many people find satisfaction in work unrelated to what they thought they wanted when they were 18-20. Maybe they discovered other options they weren't aware of. Maybe their prospective specialities disappeared over time, maybe their values changed as they matured. A whole person is about more than income or ability to match some arbitrary standard. In short noone should assume they know what an 18-20 yo is going to wind up doing (even if all goes well in their life). Nor do they (let alone their unfocussed 'advisors') know what occupations will stick around. A huge investment and a 4-year degree seems unwise and un-called for at this point. Never mind what 'tradition' says. Unless you're looking to be an academic, two years at first seems more reasonable. Less debt, less pressure. Get started, go try yourself in the crucible. Five years later, that vagueness has been clarified by life experiences. At that point, the wisdom of a big investment might make more sense. 25 can be a lot more focussed than 20.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    I don't see anything wrong with it either. I think it's a great thing that American doctors and engineers still get a liberal arts education, and it'd be wonderful if nobody in the US ever felt like finances were stopping them from getting the education they want. But that's different than having a plan for your life. Most kids can't afford to wait until after college to start planning.
gen220 7y ago
Kids of that age are usually wise enough to understand probability, the relative importance of money, and where their family’s relative position is in the financial sense. With a solid grip on those parameters, I’d say that most well-adjusted teenagers are reasonably equipped to make that decision on their own. If you feel like they’re still making the “wrong” decision, I’d personally apply anecdotes and statistics to add emphasis to the parameters you feel they’re undervaluing. Reflecting on my own situation, having recently come through the higher education system miraculously in-tact, the biggest issues I’ve observed are: (1) most teenagers don’t know the financial situation of their parents (very few did when I was in High School, anyway). Their parents could be bona fide millionaires, but they make choices ignorant of that fact. Or, their parents could be penniless, and they don’t apply to schools that give needs-based full rides, because they think they can’t afford it. (2) most teenagers do not have an appreciation for how quality of life varies substantially with seemingly small variations (say, 60k vs 90k living in NYC) in salary. This makes the “worst case” of having a minimum wage job seem not too bad. (3) most teenagers don’t understand the “life impact” and psychological burden of having a mortgage-sized loan at 22: how much of a new grad paycheck is “left” after taxes, rent, loans; how the size of the loan correlates to the amount you take out of your paycheck; how much the loan costs over it’s lifetime; and how much this all impacts your decision to buy a house, start a business, marry, etc. This obviously impacts you terribly when your college adventure is unsuccessful, but it is a burden you’ll bear regardless of your success. I feel similar to the author of this article, that it’s the responsibility of the parent to not sugar coat those issues with aphorisms like “just follow your dreams” or “the issue of money always solves itself”. It might feel embarrassing to tell your children your situation in life, but it’s a big life decision and it ought to be an informed one.
Al-Khwarizmi 7y ago
In my country people try to convince them but mostly they end up saying "well, if that's what they really want... they can always change degrees or do another one later". Several of my friends did that and ended up fine. Of course, from the replies, I notice that in America the price of degrees makes the perspective very different because the decision may not be easily reversible...
leetcrew 7y ago
how about putting together a realistic budget for after they graduate? go tour some apartments and ask them to pick one they could see themselves living in. build a budget around the rent for that place, estimated utilities, going out with friends, etc. also add the monthly loan payment for the art school they want to go to. then compare that against typical monthly take-home pay for someone in their desired field and start cutting things until they can break even. $30-40k annual income can sound like a lot to a high school student until you start breaking it down month by month and force them to confront how expensive things are and the lifestyle sacrifices they will have to make.
david38 7y ago
Just say you won’t pay for it. Show them the numbers, what it costs, what it pays, and say you aren’t rich enough to study a hobby. You need to study something you can support yourself with. They can always go off on their own and do it. At that point, they are adults and you’re done your best.
- brandonmenc 7y ago
  > Just say you won’t pay for it. And? There are plenty of banks and government agencies more than willing to let a 17 year old sign up for a crushing student loan. > Show them the numbers, what it costs, what it pays Most 17 year olds are incapable of making a good decision even with this information.
  - drivebycomment 7y ago
    And, given how many parents let their kids ruin the beginning of life with mountains of student loan, apparently, many parents are also clearly incapable of making a good decision with that information.
justin66 7y ago
> Serious question: how does a parent deal with their high school kids wanting to pursue college in a field with a low probability of high lifetime earnings (art, theatre etc.) ? Have them meet people in the profession, talk to them about the expense of college, and more generally help them strategize about what they'll need to do to maintain a middle class lifestyle as an artist. A middle-aged artist will be happy to share experiences and talk about money. The other thing is to help them think about backup plans. There are plenty of jobs in art or theatre, business and technical, that don't necessary involve performing or creating art. In my experience with a theatre program in a large university, they're quite realistic about helping their students prepare for employment.
Grakel 7y ago
Theatre Professor here. Do not let your kids go to school for acting. Oh, he or she is perfect looking and incredibly talented? Great, they don't need a degree in acting. Go to school in New York, Chicago, or LA, and audition between classes in a real degree. Now if they want to study design and tech, go nuts. The amount of work out there is incredible, there is just so much content being consumed.
- swiley 7y ago
  I kind of regret doing CS instead of music. Maybe if I had done something more art focused the competition wouldn't have been so bad and I'd probably still have a girlfriend, which is more important to me personally than money.
  - sybarita 7y ago
    LOL
  - gtfratteus 7y ago
    Music is way more competitive than CS. You have to be a truly elite musician to make a good living in music, but you can be an average programmer and still make a good living in CS.
  - throwaway100773 7y ago
    Are you talking about education or work? Because I feel the point he’s trying to make is that the educational aspect of acting is negligible. You can just do it.
  - Grakel 7y ago
    The competition in the arts is incredible. But with your CS degree you could still do music on the side? Whatever you do, you have to live outside of work and put work into your relationships.
jobu 7y ago
I'm not an expert, and every kid is different, but when I talked with my oldest (now in her first year of college) these were the things that seemed to help her pick a direction in life: 1) The Ideal Job Venn Diagram by David Hamil (https://breakingnorms.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/ideal-job-venn-diagram.png https://breakingnorms.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/ideal-job-...) It's a Venn diagram of "things you're good" at, "things you like doing", and "things that pay well". The main purpose of this is to kick off the question of whether your true passion should really be a hobby instead of a job. Also, if you don't have a "Dream Job" in mind, then start by eliminating jobs that you would hate or be terrible at. Sometimes it's just easier to pick a job that doesn't suck. 2) College is an investment in your future, so you need to understand the full costs (tuition and lost income), as well as the potential returns. What professions are you interested in and what are the average starting salaries for them? At that salary how long would it take to pay off the full cost of going to college? Another key thing I learned is to start having the conversations well before they are stressed out about picking a college and possible career. At that point it's too emotionally charged to have a rational conversation.
k__ 7y ago
Tell them that they don't have to follow their dreams 100% of the time. If you don't plan to have a big career besides art, learn something that you can bear with and that has enough demand so you don't have to work 50h a week to pay the rent. I know many people who simply have a vocation and an avocation. They work 3-4 days a week in an office job to pay the bills and do different stuff with the rest of the week. Actors, musicians, tattoo artists, DJs, event organizers, illustrators, fashion designers, instagram influencers, photographers and what not. Sure, it's cooler to do 100% of what you love, but these things really only bring fun if you can really do what you love and not have to bend yourself to apply your loved skill to some dumb projects just to make money. I know many photographers who have to do one marriage after another, just to pay the bills and they hate it. Illustrators who have to draw corporate crap all the time etc. This sucks the soul out of your passion.
starpilot 7y ago
You crush their college dreams, which is what the whole article is about.
elil17 7y ago
Show them the website of the American Visionary Art Museum. It’s a museum for art made by people who never went to art school. It’s filled with stories of people who had rich lives as artists alongside other careers. You don’t need art school to be an artist. http://www.avam.org/ http://www.avam.org/
- thanatropism 7y ago
  The museum might be cool but that website is badly designed enough to testify against this idea of being a self-taught artist.
  - elil17 7y ago
    The museum is actually run by a mime (who did have formal training)!
- itronitron 7y ago
  incidentally, a folk artist is simply an artist that does not have a formal art education
pnw_hazor 7y ago
I told them flat out: if they went that way (non-STEM) they would have to do it w/o my support. Though, in reality I would have continued to support them if they switched majors after giving STEM a chance for 2-years.
SkyBelow 7y ago
I would suggest them getting two degrees. One would need to be in something they can tolerate doing for a living that has a good chance of earning enough money (though the actual definition of enough differs between people) and the other in what they love to do. This does mean sacrificing a lot of the fun during college, but in exchange you get both an education in what you love and a career that can support what you love even if what you love isn't financially viable.
snowwrestler 7y ago
It is impossible to predict how your child's life is going to turn out. I know a bunch of people who are making great livings with degrees in supposedly "low earning potential" fields like art, English, etc. Some are web developers, some are medical professionals, some are social media experts, some are entrepreneurs, etc. Who knows what the future of the economy will hold. IMO it is better for parents to stick to logistics and standards, like "this is how much we can spend on college" and "this is how hard I expect you to work."
asdff 7y ago
In that case it's critical to go to an excellent school where networking is easy. If the probability of a job is low, go where that job is. NYC schools or USC/UCLA, I don't think the job opportunities are as plentiful in Chicago as you get competition from talent from both coasts and everyone with a pipe dream in the mid west. Otherwise it will be that shit underpaid job that you can't crawl out of, because you aren't going to get that 1 of maybe only 2 cushy theater company jobs in Houston, or a job as an illustrator in the entire mid west.
pastor_elm 7y ago
You tell them to pursue it at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc, not at Pratt or Columbia, which are known money pits. You can do anything with a liberal arts major from Harvard.
itronitron 7y ago
Tell the parent that their child is as unlikely to become Lee Iacocca as they are to become Robert Redford.
JamesBarney 7y ago
One of the great things about those fields is that they don't really require a degree. So one option is let them do it, just without the huge upfront sunk cost. If it's art, they could live at home, work as a barista, take art classes, and paint as much as they want. If it's acting they could move to L.A. or new york, wait tables and take lessons while auditioning. After a few years they'll find a little traction and decide to pursue it a few more or they'll figure accounting isn't so bad. Better to figure that out at 21 than 28.

dpcan 7y ago

My son went to college for Physics. I stressed to him that getting a high paying career in Physics with all the competition out there will be like landing a major role in a movie, he'll need to be the best of the best, and still be ready for rejection, possibly putting him into a situation where he'll take any job to stay afloat. It took him 4 months in college before discovering an Engineering field he was more interested in than Physics. It wasn't my fear-speak that did it, he just discovered how interesting it was on his own and now wants to pursue it. My sigh of relief could be heard throughout the galaxy. We are also at a state school and paying all of his college expenses out of pocket except for books and a small stipend of financial aid. So, being in a career that would yield a high paying job after he left school was very important to us.

jki275 7y ago

Just say no.

danharaj 7y ago

Ask them to double major?

wavefunction 7y ago
Or pick up a trade instead of a second degree. I think it might be easier to structure time for your artistic passions with a trade day job than a white-collar day job but I might be biased by on-call duty.
- wainstead 7y ago
  Actually, this is excellent advice. Many of the people I know who went through art programs and hung out in the art scene later applied their aesthetics to things like the construction trade (fashioning complex plaster jobs, painting) or started some kind of small time manufacturing.
vsskanth 7y ago
Good suggestion. Being from India where double majors aren't a thing, it didn't strike me. Thanks.

criddell 7y ago

I've suggested to my kids that they study two separate areas. I think it makes you stand out in a very good way if, for example, you have a dual computer science / art history degree. I'm lucky though because my kids are dual US-Canada citizens. They can go to university in Canada and it's very inexpensive.

starpilot 7y ago
I asked a mechanical engineer in hiring if a double major on a resume made any difference to him. He said that if the major was not related to engineering, he really didn't care about it. They're paying you to be an engineer, nothing more. I studied Russian and in aerospace engineering in the US, employers absolutely did not care about it. I now resent the time/money spent on that coursework, and wish I had taken stats or CS, maybe dabbling in Russian on my own time.
- itronitron 7y ago
  having more than one degree won't help someone get a job, but it will help that person succeed in their career
- baylisscg 7y ago
  When you hybridise like that it’s up to you to highlight the benefits. As you point out it’s much easier to do that with closely related fields. You need to have an idea of what the one field brings to the other. If you don’t know and can’t articulate that how is the hiring manager supposed to?

vidanay 7y ago

Drop the "follow your dreams" rhetoric and have a serious discussion with them about the costs of life and lifestyles. If they want to live in a 6000 sq ft house in Malibu, then they shouldn't get a degree in 5th Century Aerobics.

non-entity 7y ago
> If they want to live in a 6000 sq ft house in Malibu, then they shouldn't get a degree in 5th Century Aerobics. I mean if that's what they want, you might as well tell them to be born into another family because you'll never enough for that as a wage worker regardless of the degree.
- refurb 7y ago
  Doctors and lawyers could afford a house in Malibu and they are wage workers.
  - nugget 7y ago
    The white collar professionals who can afford these types of areas are usually much more like entrepreneurs than individual practitioners of their craft.
    - vidanay 7y ago
      And they have a relevant education.
  - falcolas 7y ago
    Not all doctors. Not all lawyers. Only the cream of the crop in those respective fields, and only after 20+ years in the field. Of course, that assumes a normal mortgage, with no “payments go to interest only” or other malarkey.
    - HarryHirsch 7y ago
      But to be able to play at the top of the field you'll have to have attended something like Penn Law or Yale Medicine. SUNY Downstate won't cut it.

sesuximo 7y ago

Take as many gap years being an artist as you want. The degree won't help much in pure arts anyway maybe the 529 will grow in that time anyway

mmmBacon 7y ago
The average rate of return in 529s is about 3%.

xwdv 7y ago

This happens to parents that don’t discuss the importance of having money in life. Also happens when kids get little to no financial education. The kids grow up thinking pursuing your passions and dreams is more important than accumulating money. And it feels so good and right until you find yourself broke and poor and your passion is gone, and you think life just sucks. It takes no effort to throw down a spreadsheet. List their yearly earnings for the rest of their life. Throw in expenses like mortgages, vacations, food, then add in kids and family, medical emergencies, show them just how poor they will be if they go down the path of their shitty career. Many kids may be left wide eyed when they accept these numbers are true. There’s no extra money hidden away, no big windfall waiting to come out and propel them up the class ladder. This is it, this is their life. Good luck.

TomVDB 7y ago
Your first paragraph is absolutist, judgemental, and, frankly, very naive. Our household has very open finances. We have dinner table talks about dollar cost averaging, compounded growth, and investing in broad mutual funds. Kids have a bank account with debit card at 14, and a personal Vanguard account at 18, as well as a Roth IRA in which we match their taxable earnings. And the kids know that making money is hard: they tutor, they create their own Kickstarter campaigns, they work as a cashier for extras. They know how to make a budget and what things cost. But no amount of your discussion or financial education is going change the mind of a very determined, strong headed youngster who “doesn’t want to live in the bubble of Silicon Valley anyway” and wants to pursue a non-technical creative course of live.
- pnutjam 7y ago
  Alot of your points, show an upper middle class lifestyle. Your kids probably live in a bubble with other similar kids. You need to expose them to people who have made bad decisions. Seeing how people live can be very illustrative.
- xwdv 7y ago
  Well then I just hope that youngster is also prepared to find some creative ways to make money.

appleiigs 7y ago

Just have them work the numbers out. Specifically create monthly budget after they graduate. Salary expectations, rent/mortgage, student debt, taxes, transportation, food, etc.

hajile 7y ago

Does art school make a person a better artist? I would argue not really -- especially in a day in age where so much advanced art instruction is available for free. When a company or person wants to commission you, do they look at your degree or your portfolio? The only real benefit of art college is more contacts to sell on your personality. $300,000 for that $75,000/yr college is a huge marketing budget for someone not proven to be a success. That money would be much better spent establishing an art studio and working on a portfolio. At least if they aren't very successful, some of the loss can be recovered. The same idea goes for most art degrees in one form or another.

criddell 7y ago
> Does art school make a person a better artist? It certainly isn't automatic but a motivated student can get a lot out of the experience.
gen220 7y ago
My girlfriend and I have had this discussion a lot, because she went to a top tier art school. I think you might be underrating three factors in your reasoning: One is the value of very direct feedback and guidance from seasoned, respected professionals. The class sizes in top art programs are very small, and most classes have a frequent, intense “critique” portion where the professor and students tear apart each others’ work. It’s like 3 years of intense code review from other talented programmers, led by a staff engineer. It’s hard to put a sticker price on this, because you largely get out what you put in, but it’s immense and I’d argue unique to a top tier art school. The second is that you’re living in a high pressure environment of professors and peers who always seem to be pushing you to be better in some dimension. It’s not conducive for everyone, but if you have a strong competitive drive, it can make you very productive. Finally, the fundamentals in design and art are insanely important. My girlfriend took 4 semesters of typography, because the ROI there is legitimately defensible. Most people skip this stuff when they’re self teaching, and it shows to people who know better. You’re right that portfolios are of paramount importance, but good companies will make you defend your portfolio pieces, and ask you what you’d do differently with different constraints or resources. An art school training will humble you to the idea that there is another way, and arm you with ideas for alternative solutions. It’s subtle, but it comes out in interviews and on the job. I’d argue it’s similar to software engineering in that way.

TomVDB 7y ago

We are in this now. First year in college, still undecided what to do, but interested in something design/art/writing. Our suggestions to choose something that might be profitable was a huge stress factor that pushed her towards depression and we decided to back off. She had always surprised us in a good way, and she has proven to be very good a connecting with people, organizing, making things work. I think she’ll be fine eventually. We are not generationally wealthy, but tech has made us rich enough afford the college tuition without too much pain. Not everyone can or wants to be an engineer.

puranjay 7y ago
Design offers an easy path to a profitable career. A specialization in UX design would easily earn your child a lucrative position in any tech company. Even writing - something I pursued - offers a path to a stable career if you move towards copywriting and content. A few years in an agency as a copywriter and all sorts of options open up, some highly lucrative ones (creative director/strategist).

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago

I’m pretty sympathetic to the perspective that the solution is not dealing with it. “I want to go to art school” is at the same level as “I want a pony” or “I’m gonna marry a rich girl”; it’s not originally intended as a serious life plan, and you’ll only start to see it as one if the people around you encourage it.

criddell 7y ago
I don't see anything wrong with going to school for an education rather than training. Frankly, I wish there were more kids working on a liberal and fine arts education. It's one of the reasons I'm a big fan of the free-college-for-all plans being pushed by some politicians.
- 8bitsrule 7y ago
  I don't either. Most of the life-long value I got from college was not in the concentrations I was required to choose from. The real value was in the broad exposure to many disciplines, endeavors and POVs. Especially important in that were the hundreds of talented people I got to talk with ... a valuable extracurricular available at many schools. Many people find satisfaction in work unrelated to what they thought they wanted when they were 18-20. Maybe they discovered other options they weren't aware of. Maybe their prospective specialities disappeared over time, maybe their values changed as they matured. A whole person is about more than income or ability to match some arbitrary standard. In short noone should assume they know what an 18-20 yo is going to wind up doing (even if all goes well in their life). Nor do they (let alone their unfocussed 'advisors') know what occupations will stick around. A huge investment and a 4-year degree seems unwise and un-called for at this point. Never mind what 'tradition' says. Unless you're looking to be an academic, two years at first seems more reasonable. Less debt, less pressure. Get started, go try yourself in the crucible. Five years later, that vagueness has been clarified by life experiences. At that point, the wisdom of a big investment might make more sense. 25 can be a lot more focussed than 20.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  I don't see anything wrong with it either. I think it's a great thing that American doctors and engineers still get a liberal arts education, and it'd be wonderful if nobody in the US ever felt like finances were stopping them from getting the education they want. But that's different than having a plan for your life. Most kids can't afford to wait until after college to start planning.

gen220 7y ago

Kids of that age are usually wise enough to understand probability, the relative importance of money, and where their family’s relative position is in the financial sense. With a solid grip on those parameters, I’d say that most well-adjusted teenagers are reasonably equipped to make that decision on their own. If you feel like they’re still making the “wrong” decision, I’d personally apply anecdotes and statistics to add emphasis to the parameters you feel they’re undervaluing. Reflecting on my own situation, having recently come through the higher education system miraculously in-tact, the biggest issues I’ve observed are: (1) most teenagers don’t know the financial situation of their parents (very few did when I was in High School, anyway). Their parents could be bona fide millionaires, but they make choices ignorant of that fact. Or, their parents could be penniless, and they don’t apply to schools that give needs-based full rides, because they think they can’t afford it. (2) most teenagers do not have an appreciation for how quality of life varies substantially with seemingly small variations (say, 60k vs 90k living in NYC) in salary. This makes the “worst case” of having a minimum wage job seem not too bad. (3) most teenagers don’t understand the “life impact” and psychological burden of having a mortgage-sized loan at 22: how much of a new grad paycheck is “left” after taxes, rent, loans; how the size of the loan correlates to the amount you take out of your paycheck; how much the loan costs over it’s lifetime; and how much this all impacts your decision to buy a house, start a business, marry, etc. This obviously impacts you terribly when your college adventure is unsuccessful, but it is a burden you’ll bear regardless of your success. I feel similar to the author of this article, that it’s the responsibility of the parent to not sugar coat those issues with aphorisms like “just follow your dreams” or “the issue of money always solves itself”. It might feel embarrassing to tell your children your situation in life, but it’s a big life decision and it ought to be an informed one.

Al-Khwarizmi 7y ago

In my country people try to convince them but mostly they end up saying "well, if that's what they really want... they can always change degrees or do another one later". Several of my friends did that and ended up fine. Of course, from the replies, I notice that in America the price of degrees makes the perspective very different because the decision may not be easily reversible...

leetcrew 7y ago

how about putting together a realistic budget for after they graduate? go tour some apartments and ask them to pick one they could see themselves living in. build a budget around the rent for that place, estimated utilities, going out with friends, etc. also add the monthly loan payment for the art school they want to go to. then compare that against typical monthly take-home pay for someone in their desired field and start cutting things until they can break even. $30-40k annual income can sound like a lot to a high school student until you start breaking it down month by month and force them to confront how expensive things are and the lifestyle sacrifices they will have to make.

david38 7y ago

Just say you won’t pay for it. Show them the numbers, what it costs, what it pays, and say you aren’t rich enough to study a hobby. You need to study something you can support yourself with. They can always go off on their own and do it. At that point, they are adults and you’re done your best.

brandonmenc 7y ago
> Just say you won’t pay for it. And? There are plenty of banks and government agencies more than willing to let a 17 year old sign up for a crushing student loan. > Show them the numbers, what it costs, what it pays Most 17 year olds are incapable of making a good decision even with this information.
- drivebycomment 7y ago
  And, given how many parents let their kids ruin the beginning of life with mountains of student loan, apparently, many parents are also clearly incapable of making a good decision with that information.

justin66 7y ago

> Serious question: how does a parent deal with their high school kids wanting to pursue college in a field with a low probability of high lifetime earnings (art, theatre etc.) ? Have them meet people in the profession, talk to them about the expense of college, and more generally help them strategize about what they'll need to do to maintain a middle class lifestyle as an artist. A middle-aged artist will be happy to share experiences and talk about money. The other thing is to help them think about backup plans. There are plenty of jobs in art or theatre, business and technical, that don't necessary involve performing or creating art. In my experience with a theatre program in a large university, they're quite realistic about helping their students prepare for employment.

Grakel 7y ago

Theatre Professor here. Do not let your kids go to school for acting. Oh, he or she is perfect looking and incredibly talented? Great, they don't need a degree in acting. Go to school in New York, Chicago, or LA, and audition between classes in a real degree. Now if they want to study design and tech, go nuts. The amount of work out there is incredible, there is just so much content being consumed.

swiley 7y ago
I kind of regret doing CS instead of music. Maybe if I had done something more art focused the competition wouldn't have been so bad and I'd probably still have a girlfriend, which is more important to me personally than money.
- sybarita 7y ago
  LOL
- gtfratteus 7y ago
  Music is way more competitive than CS. You have to be a truly elite musician to make a good living in music, but you can be an average programmer and still make a good living in CS.
- throwaway100773 7y ago
  Are you talking about education or work? Because I feel the point he’s trying to make is that the educational aspect of acting is negligible. You can just do it.
- Grakel 7y ago
  The competition in the arts is incredible. But with your CS degree you could still do music on the side? Whatever you do, you have to live outside of work and put work into your relationships.

jobu 7y ago

I'm not an expert, and every kid is different, but when I talked with my oldest (now in her first year of college) these were the things that seemed to help her pick a direction in life: 1) The Ideal Job Venn Diagram by David Hamil (https://breakingnorms.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/ideal-job-venn-diagram.png https://breakingnorms.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/ideal-job-...) It's a Venn diagram of "things you're good" at, "things you like doing", and "things that pay well". The main purpose of this is to kick off the question of whether your true passion should really be a hobby instead of a job. Also, if you don't have a "Dream Job" in mind, then start by eliminating jobs that you would hate or be terrible at. Sometimes it's just easier to pick a job that doesn't suck. 2) College is an investment in your future, so you need to understand the full costs (tuition and lost income), as well as the potential returns. What professions are you interested in and what are the average starting salaries for them? At that salary how long would it take to pay off the full cost of going to college? Another key thing I learned is to start having the conversations well before they are stressed out about picking a college and possible career. At that point it's too emotionally charged to have a rational conversation.

k__ 7y ago

Tell them that they don't have to follow their dreams 100% of the time. If you don't plan to have a big career besides art, learn something that you can bear with and that has enough demand so you don't have to work 50h a week to pay the rent. I know many people who simply have a vocation and an avocation. They work 3-4 days a week in an office job to pay the bills and do different stuff with the rest of the week. Actors, musicians, tattoo artists, DJs, event organizers, illustrators, fashion designers, instagram influencers, photographers and what not. Sure, it's cooler to do 100% of what you love, but these things really only bring fun if you can really do what you love and not have to bend yourself to apply your loved skill to some dumb projects just to make money. I know many photographers who have to do one marriage after another, just to pay the bills and they hate it. Illustrators who have to draw corporate crap all the time etc. This sucks the soul out of your passion.

starpilot 7y ago

You crush their college dreams, which is what the whole article is about.

elil17 7y ago

Show them the website of the American Visionary Art Museum. It’s a museum for art made by people who never went to art school. It’s filled with stories of people who had rich lives as artists alongside other careers. You don’t need art school to be an artist. http://www.avam.org/ http://www.avam.org/

thanatropism 7y ago
The museum might be cool but that website is badly designed enough to testify against this idea of being a self-taught artist.
- elil17 7y ago
  The museum is actually run by a mime (who did have formal training)!
itronitron 7y ago
incidentally, a folk artist is simply an artist that does not have a formal art education

pnw_hazor 7y ago

I told them flat out: if they went that way (non-STEM) they would have to do it w/o my support. Though, in reality I would have continued to support them if they switched majors after giving STEM a chance for 2-years.

SkyBelow 7y ago

I would suggest them getting two degrees. One would need to be in something they can tolerate doing for a living that has a good chance of earning enough money (though the actual definition of enough differs between people) and the other in what they love to do. This does mean sacrificing a lot of the fun during college, but in exchange you get both an education in what you love and a career that can support what you love even if what you love isn't financially viable.

snowwrestler 7y ago

It is impossible to predict how your child's life is going to turn out. I know a bunch of people who are making great livings with degrees in supposedly "low earning potential" fields like art, English, etc. Some are web developers, some are medical professionals, some are social media experts, some are entrepreneurs, etc. Who knows what the future of the economy will hold. IMO it is better for parents to stick to logistics and standards, like "this is how much we can spend on college" and "this is how hard I expect you to work."

asdff 7y ago

In that case it's critical to go to an excellent school where networking is easy. If the probability of a job is low, go where that job is. NYC schools or USC/UCLA, I don't think the job opportunities are as plentiful in Chicago as you get competition from talent from both coasts and everyone with a pipe dream in the mid west. Otherwise it will be that shit underpaid job that you can't crawl out of, because you aren't going to get that 1 of maybe only 2 cushy theater company jobs in Houston, or a job as an illustrator in the entire mid west.

pastor_elm 7y ago

You tell them to pursue it at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc, not at Pratt or Columbia, which are known money pits. You can do anything with a liberal arts major from Harvard.

itronitron 7y ago

Tell the parent that their child is as unlikely to become Lee Iacocca as they are to become Robert Redford.

JamesBarney 7y ago

One of the great things about those fields is that they don't really require a degree. So one option is let them do it, just without the huge upfront sunk cost. If it's art, they could live at home, work as a barista, take art classes, and paint as much as they want. If it's acting they could move to L.A. or new york, wait tables and take lessons while auditioning. After a few years they'll find a little traction and decide to pursue it a few more or they'll figure accounting isn't so bad. Better to figure that out at 21 than 28.