About Don't Pay For Grad School
After 5 years of living as a poor starving artist in Brooklyn, I sought to escape the life of urban poverty through the MFA track. I have applied randomly and foolishly almost as an escape from my current difficulties to gradaute school to the following schools with varying sucess in 2009, 2011, and 2014: 1. Columbia, 2. Hunter, 3. VCU, 4. Alfred, 5. Tyler School of Art, 6. Ohio State, 7. Iowa State, 8. UCLA. I applied to Columbia and Hunter because I was in NY and thought it would be a good next step. VCU and UCLA because they were fully-funded and in the top #10 (whatever this top 10 means according to U.S. News). I applied to Tyler because I thought it was funded and in top #15 and close enough to New York to maintain my contacts and continue showing. OSU and Iowa because they were funded and a full escape from urban poverty, and my wife wanted to go to school there for an MFA in dance, maybe we could knock it both out at the same time. Luckily I was rejected from Columbia and Hunter and am still debt free and am still a full-time practicing studio artist. I was wait-listed by Alfred. Accepted to Tyler but informed of massive funding cuts. Accepted to OSU but after visiting Columbus, OH decided that would be a bad move. I never received anything back from Iowa and I emailed them but still heard no response. Rejected from UCLA.
My goal is to encourage artists to revolutionize our faulty system in the United States of obtaining advanced degrees in studio art by boycotting expensive schools and attending grad school for free. If Europe could offer MFA's in studio art, then there certainly would be a change of tides because University is free in many European countries (except the UK). Unfortunately, MFA program's in studio art do not exist in Europe (except a couple that are run by expensive American Universities in overpriced programs in the UK). As history stands now, many fully funded programs in the United States are in country towns far removed from urban cultural life and art institutions. If artist's would not give in to the pointless rankings and reputations of Yale, Columbia, RISD, and MICA with their $40K/yr. price tags, we could forge ahead to a better future of artistic independence from the stifling institutions which are literally robbing artists of their money and most precious time.
This site is also in response to much personal work spent trying to find a free graduate school in studio art for myself after witnessing many friends and colleagues in New York, Washington DC, L.A. and San Francisco descend into debt by sadly sacrificing their artistic careers ironically because of going through the trouble to get an MFA. Their careers's existed during the two years of their study and in theory afterward because of the MFA stamp of approval. But their financial straights caused their studio practice to nearly vanish after grad school. Some of my friends and co-workers had MFA's from Yale, Columbia, MICA, RISD, Pratt, and the New York Academy. Their crippling $75K+ debts after grad school squashed their studio practice and artistic dreams. Some got lucky and landed a tenure-track job at East-Kalamaazooville University in North Dakota or married a lawyer.
But for most grads financial reality set in and their work-a-day careers as administrators for non-profits, universities, museums, and poorly paid adjunct professors began in cities priced too high for artists to live. Cities which were made for people with higher incomes in other fields like economics, software engineering, banking, and other very boring lines of work which allow one to live with semi-normal living standards in New York or San Francisco. The Bohemia of old New York, L.A., and San Francisco is a ghost of the past. There is no contemporary Bohemia in the modern American metropolis, "the rents are too damn high" (the political party name and mantra of a former quasi-politician running for Mayor in New York named Jimmy McMillan .) You have to move to the burned out towns like Detroit, MI, Youngstown, OH or Carbondale, IL to survive with cheap rent as an artist. The times have rapidly changed for the artist in the contemporary city in 2015. Lets build a sustainable future for artists by boycotting the institutions which are robbing us of the money we don't have and the time which we should have. Don't die in the artistic suicide of grad school debt however prestigious the name sounds. Attend free grad schools in the United States or don't go at all!
My goal is to encourage artists to revolutionize our faulty system in the United States of obtaining advanced degrees in studio art by boycotting expensive schools and attending grad school for free. If Europe could offer MFA's in studio art, then there certainly would be a change of tides because University is free in many European countries (except the UK). Unfortunately, MFA program's in studio art do not exist in Europe (except a couple that are run by expensive American Universities in overpriced programs in the UK). As history stands now, many fully funded programs in the United States are in country towns far removed from urban cultural life and art institutions. If artist's would not give in to the pointless rankings and reputations of Yale, Columbia, RISD, and MICA with their $40K/yr. price tags, we could forge ahead to a better future of artistic independence from the stifling institutions which are literally robbing artists of their money and most precious time.
This site is also in response to much personal work spent trying to find a free graduate school in studio art for myself after witnessing many friends and colleagues in New York, Washington DC, L.A. and San Francisco descend into debt by sadly sacrificing their artistic careers ironically because of going through the trouble to get an MFA. Their careers's existed during the two years of their study and in theory afterward because of the MFA stamp of approval. But their financial straights caused their studio practice to nearly vanish after grad school. Some of my friends and co-workers had MFA's from Yale, Columbia, MICA, RISD, Pratt, and the New York Academy. Their crippling $75K+ debts after grad school squashed their studio practice and artistic dreams. Some got lucky and landed a tenure-track job at East-Kalamaazooville University in North Dakota or married a lawyer.
But for most grads financial reality set in and their work-a-day careers as administrators for non-profits, universities, museums, and poorly paid adjunct professors began in cities priced too high for artists to live. Cities which were made for people with higher incomes in other fields like economics, software engineering, banking, and other very boring lines of work which allow one to live with semi-normal living standards in New York or San Francisco. The Bohemia of old New York, L.A., and San Francisco is a ghost of the past. There is no contemporary Bohemia in the modern American metropolis, "the rents are too damn high" (the political party name and mantra of a former quasi-politician running for Mayor in New York named Jimmy McMillan .) You have to move to the burned out towns like Detroit, MI, Youngstown, OH or Carbondale, IL to survive with cheap rent as an artist. The times have rapidly changed for the artist in the contemporary city in 2015. Lets build a sustainable future for artists by boycotting the institutions which are robbing us of the money we don't have and the time which we should have. Don't die in the artistic suicide of grad school debt however prestigious the name sounds. Attend free grad schools in the United States or don't go at all!