Art Schools vs. Traditional Universities: Where do you fit in?
Many students that we work with at Vision Field are concerned about whether they should go to art school or to a traditional university to study art (even at a graduate school level). The answer to this is pretty simple: if you are planning to go into the arts and can’t imagine yourself not working in a creative career of some kind, going to an art school will prepare you much better than a university (unless you select a university that has an excellent art program. They exist - but they are not the norm). However, if you love art and creativity, but you are not convinced that artistic career is what you want to pursue above all else, then a more traditional university will likely be a better fit.
The quality of arts created in an art school and the creative environment within an art school simply occur at more focused intensity than one would experience at a traditional university. Teachers and programs are often granted more academic freedom, and their courses are geared more heavily towards experimentation; administrative leadership at art schools have experience in the arts; and board members who drive the direction of the school are inherently interested in propagating the arts as a subject of learning. At more traditional universities the arts are, of course, respected, but resources rarely ever focus on arts programming.
Art schools do have significant drawbacks and they are definitely not for everyone. Most art schools are under financial pressure that larger universities simply do not have to deal with to the same degree because art schools are expensive to operate. Artists require physical space, mechanical training, and higher demand for student support services (art students tend to suffer from learning difficulties and mental health issues at a higher rate than their peers in other subject areas). Artists need access to spaces after hours, and there is virtually no opportunity to teach classes in a way that does not require physical presence - universities have expanded their “distance learning” initiatives as a way to broaden their reach and earn money to support in-person learning while art schools are struggling to transition to virtual learning environments. In addition, because art schools do not draw the same level of large-scale donors as university business and science programs, for example, they tend to be primarily tuition-driven - which means their budgets are often more strained, and amenities may be lacking in comparison to larger universities (i.e. top-of-the-line gyms, dining halls, sports teams, dormitories).
To recruit the best students, art schools often discount tuition at a high rate, which makes their operational budget even tighter. Some larger art schools such as the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), or Pratt are able to navigate these difficulties by virtue of their scale, but this also presents drawbacks in terms of less personal attention from faculty and more competitive, anonymous relationships with other students.
If you are somewhat unsure of your professional direction, have a variety of interests, and hold a more traditional vision of school, you should absolutely consider a university over an art school. But be sure to examine what the arts are like at this university first because schools have a very wide range of styles and expectations within their arts programs. One should not go to a traditional university art program and expect it to mimic an art school in terms of its general caliber of artistic freedom, or opportunities surrounding the arts. Doing your research about what programs are like at a specific school will help you prepare for your future studies and might save you a good deal of money, time, and stress. Take note of what is required for each application and what the “foundation” experience is like. If these two components feel overly prescribed and dissociated from your interests, it should raise a red flag about your potential success in the program.
If you are specifically interested in one aspect of the arts program (say, ceramics or filmmaking) look at the available courses at the institution in this specific medium. Most universities do not boast the same challenging upper-level coursework in a specific medium - and focus instead on a broad range of arts courses. For the targeted, directed artist, an art school provides much greater depth, whereas a university often focuses on breadth.
Conversely, the core academic subject offerings at art schools are often limited due to budget, scalability, and interest. We have worked with students who love art, but also have a passion for languages or science - and can feel limited in their studies at an art school. While some art schools such as the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) and Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) have bridged this gap (not without major headaches) through unique partnerships with Tufts University and Brown University, respectively, it is not the norm that art schools will be able to provide the breadth or the depth of subject offerings beyond a few novel courses in certain non-art fields.
Some students do seek to concurrently enroll in a university / community college specifically to take course offerings that are not present in art school, but this process can be stressful, confusing and alienating.
In the discussion of art schools, we often find that there are significant misconceptions that people hold when evaluating an art school against a traditional university. Here are some that we encounter often:
Myth #1: Art Schools are not academically rigorous. This is absolutely not true at all. Some of the courses you will experience in art school will challenge you in ways that will surprise you. Even courses focusing on art-making will force you into research or challenging dialogue. While you may not be required to take an ancient philosophy class or an anthropology class, the academic rigor of art school can be incredibly intense. Similarly, many art schools are pivoting their curricula to contain more “practical” courses that prepare students for a possible career orientation.
It is always important to remember that, in education, rigor in and of itself is not helpful. Rigor should be oriented towards a student’s growth and interest - not just towards a generalized sense of stress and busywork. The time commitment and dedication that art students employ to successfully navigate art school may not appear rigorous to those who envision higher education to revolve around paper-writing, test-taking, and long nights in the library; but the work ethic, time commitment, and motivation of art students should not be understated.
Part of this myth comes from artists themselves - because many young art students, coming out of traditional secondary school settings, are primed to believe that education is about arbitrary rigor - and should not be enjoyable. A common refrain among young artists is the notion that, because they are in an art school, they are not learning anything useful or applicable to the “real world” - which they believe to be defined by efficiency and practicality. Of course, progressive educators know that this is not the case - because the usefulness of an education is much more about how one applies it than what information is learned. Which leads to the next point…
Myth #2: Art schools only teach you art. While of course art schools focus on art, the world of art is diverse in nature - and “learning about art” can mean virtually anything. Art students take classes on deeply complex subjects that relate to science, philosophy, economic theory, critical thinking, race, class, gender, and many other courses of study in incredibly pressing and significant topics.
Most of all, it is important to recognize that the quality of an education should not be defined by what you learned, but how you use it. Memorizing facts and figures about economic trends or environmental policies is not helpful unless you can flexibly use this information to inform your thinking or practice - and this flexibility is what artists specialize in.
Art students learn significant lessons in critical thinking, problem solving, and qualitative evaluation through a self-reflective, experiential process of thinking and making. And while this certainly occurs at a traditional university, art school, with its singular focus, incubates students in a manner that universities simply cannot provide. These students innately learn how to create solutions to problems, self-advocate, and challenge themselves in ways that many students in other disciplines are robbed of - and are left with a degree that symbolizes knowledge without understanding.
Myth #3: Art schools are always more expensive than universities. Private art schools are certainly expensive by nearly any metric - but most people do not realize that a school’s listed tuition does not define what you will actually have to pay to attend the school. Schools across the nation have what is known as a “discount rate” - money in grants and scholarships that they provide students to attend a school. In 2021, private colleges (which many renowned art schools are) discounted tuition by over 50% for first-time freshmen (read more here). Four year public universities, by contrast, offer discount rates in the 20% range.
In addition, a school’s tuition does not tell you what you will have to pay to live, work, and eat while attending. For instance, attending a public university in New York City may actually cost more than a private college in Florida simply on the basis of tuition discounts and the relatively high cost of living in New York City. Now, the overall value of living in a major city to an artist may outweigh the cost differential, but the point is that you do not know what a school will cost you until you receive a financial aid package and see the Total Cost of Attendance for a school. Total cost of attendance includes housing, food, transportation, health insurance, fees - everything.
There are a host of problems that this trend may signify (squeezing of smaller, tuition dependent schools, over-reliance on international students, lack of economic diversity in the student body, etc.), but for the purpose of this article, it is important to state that if you have a strong portfolio and a strong academic background, art schools will give you significant money to attend.
For young art students, Vision Field specializes in portfolio development and college admissions in order to provide the best, most cost-effective opportunities to students. We are happy to walk you through these difficulties.
Myth #4: If you go to art school, you will not be able to find a job. This statement is absolutely, patently false. There is no question that some art school graduates move on to have lucrative and exciting careers making art. It is more likely, however, that an art school graduate will wind up working in an alternate field - but one that still involves the arts, creativity, problem solving, and dispositions developed in art school.
According to a recent SNAAP Survey (Strategic National Arts Alumni Project), over 68% of art school graduates did, at one time, have a job in the arts, and over 50% currently have a job in the arts. Many art school graduates go into education, design, arts administration, and writing. While art students wind up making less money, on average, than more career-focused majors, arts alumni report much higher levels of job happiness and overall satisfaction - as well as significantly lower levels of unemployment nationally. We maintain that art students often make the best employees and bosses because they can predict problems, take initiative, and are relentless in their creative approach.
In summation, there is no question that choosing a college or university is a daunting and challenging proposition. But we at Vision Field believe that the most important aspect of learning is to develop dispositions and flexible bases of knowledge to support artistic and personal development - in careers and in life. Some universities will help to accomplish this for certain students, and some will not. Some art schools will help to accomplish this for certain students, and some will not. The key determinant is not necessarily what a school is like, but who you are and what you need to succeed. Doing the research with us and taking the time to reflect and explore is key. While we can help you navigate this process from the inside, finding a path is always about you.
