Your MFA Doesn't Pay

[tgtaylor]

A fine Arts degree is listed as the 9th lowest paying degree on the Top 10 lowest paying college degrees to graduate with. http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/career-arti...e_degrees-1263 Social work is number one on the list but "They say that crime doesn't pay. As this list seems to point out, neither does helping people."

[msk2193]

But by your mid-life crisis at least you're doing better than the clerk behind the Holiday Inn Express counter, the teacher in front of the classroom, a musician, or a priest!

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

I read that as a BFA, not an MFA.

[SamReeves]

I dunno. The universities and colleges are hiring the MFA's all the time. The problem is they keep picking the MFA's with no industry experience.

[Daniel_Buck]

I'm doing just fine with my BA :-) The degree doesn't get (and keep) your good job, your talant and eye does :-)

[Ben Syverson]

If you get a BFA or MFA with the expectation to cash in, you deserve the shock that's coming to you.

[rdenney]

If you just want a job, apprentice under a successful professional.

Rick "who's never known a well-educated person--irrespective of degree--who couldn't make their way through life on their own, unless they didn't want to" Denney

[Mike Anderson]

...
Rick "who's never known a well-educated person--irrespective of degree--who couldn't make their way through life on their own, unless they didn't want to" Denney

But: does education provide the ability to "make their way through life on their own", or does that ability enable the education?

...Mike

[Frank Petronio]

Hey some of my best Displaced Transgender Inuit friends with their graduate art degrees would dispute that teaching jobs in the arts are hard to find.

[rdenney]

But: does education provide the ability to "make their way through life on their own", or does that ability enable the education?

It is difficult to know without testing. One reason prospective employers like to see a college degree, even when they don't care which degree, is that it shows the applicant has taken and passed the test.

Rick "who, when in hiring mode, finds that self-confidence alone is necessary but not sufficient" Denney