As the creative writers of academia gather next week in Washington, D.C., for the annual Associated Writing Programs Conference, I was hoping I could inject a potential topic into the discussion that doesn’t appear to be on the menu.
Tuition and student debt.
I raise this question in the wake of the somewhat embarrassing news that the A.R.T. (American Repertory Theater) Institute at Harvard was placed on the Department of Education’s naughty list for running afoul of the department’s gainful employment metrics for its “debt to earnings” ratio.
As compiled by Kevin Carey at The New York Times, those ratios are indeed grim.
As Carey says, “After accounting for basic living expenses, the average Harvard A.R.T. Institute graduate has to pay 44 percent of discretionary income just to make the minimum loan payment.”
Yikes.
The news is particularly embarrassing given that Harvard’s endowment is over $35 billion, and the American Repertory Theater is a nonprofit with a board that includes a Who’s Who of American music and theater music mixed with some really rich folks.
In response, as Carey reports, the A.R.T. Institute is suspending enrollment for the fall.
I don’t believe we should start measuring the worth of all graduate study in the fine arts against debt-to-earnings ratios. The motives for entering a creative writing MFA program, for example, are as varied as individuals are varied.
Some desire a career in academia with the MFA as a terminal degree. Some are already planning for a PhD. Some want to make connections to help get a book deal. Some are just looking for time and space to pursue their passion with little care or concern about future publication or employment. Some just want the opportunity to work closely with a particular mentor or even live in a particular place.
Some feel like they’re not sure about their prospects as a writer, but they’re definitely writing-curious, and graduate school sure beats your soul-killing job.
(That was me.)
There are approximately 3,000 newly minted MFA holders each year.[1] It is a good thing that many are not interested in academic positions because the Academic Jobs Wiki for creative writing this year listed a sum total of 102 tenure-track jobs across fiction, poetry, non-fiction, open, and mixed categories. Even presuming equal chances (which would be silly), the odds of landing a tenure track job are vanishingly small. The vast majority of those positions will go to people who are many years post-MFA with significant publications.
An AWP survey finds that the estimated cost of degree (tuition and fees only) for a full-residency MFA is just over $20k (in-state). For a low-res degree, it’s approximately $31k.
It is a little tough to know what to make of some of these numbers. Many programs (58 according to this compilation) offer funding to every student in the form of fellowships and/or teaching assistantships. Most other programs offer assistance to at least some of their students.
But at some programs, some students are getting help while others are paying full freight. At a place like Columbia, which boasts a faculty that includes Paul Beatty, Richard Ford, Leslie Jamison, Hedi Julavits, and Ben Marcus, among many other luminaries, the full-cost tuition for the two-year program is $120,000. Those students are also living in New York City.