The question of whether someone should go to fine art school or not is a smaller conversation in the bigger "Is Higher Education Worth the Cost" debate raging everywhere (especially in the US). Educatee debt can exist crippling to someone starting out in any field, but it is often extra hard to conduct equally an artist because most artists volition not come out of schoolhouse able to pull in enough money to support themselves solely off their art. It takes fourth dimension to develop your both your style and skills, and it takes time to work your way up the industry ladder in your chosen field. Near fields of Art likewise exercise not accept the well-browbeaten path to a career that many other industries accept (go an internship while in school, take a well-established tier of entry-level positions from which you can work your fashion up). Graphic Blueprint/Advertising can, and sometimes blitheness tin, but any of the fine arts and nigh of the freelance-based paths have a much more confusing road afterward graduation. Well-nigh graduates with a BFA will exit school and either not work in an fine art-related job or exist convinced that they need to take on even more debt and keep to graduate school for an MFA.

This is not a new debate: Eric Fortune posted about this on Muddy Colors style back in 2010.

Very few art schools practice a good job preparing you to accept a career and teach little to no business. The best programs give you a Business organization Practices class in your senior twelvemonth, unremarkably just one semester. That's barely enough fourth dimension to learn how to set up up an invoice properly—forget agreement self-promotion, professional etiquette, networking & negotiation skills, and contract terms. The lack of business preparation given to artists in school is exactly the reason Marc Scheff & I started Fatigued + Drafted to broadcast every bit much fine art biz info as possible.

However, Fine art as a career has one major advantage: you tin succeed in many many fields of Fine art without an Fine art degree. In Art, your portfolio is male monarch. Non only does the quality of your work supercede your caste — in many jobs no one will even look at your resumé. No Fine art Director hiring a freelance illustrator, lensman, or designer even looks to see what school you attended. At most we'll expect at a customer list to run into what professional feel you take, but I've literally never looked for a freelancer'south resumé. A fine fine art career may get launched by the gallery connections you make in school — but going to schoolhouse is no guarantee of successful connections — and there are other ways to brand them. Some in-house jobs (many in Graphic Design) exercise inquire for a Bachelor's caste as a requirement, but even and then I know many ADs would overlook that if someone'due south design portfolio and skills were convincing.

So Art Schoolhouse generally doesn't teach y'all Fine art Business or how to build an Art Career. Information technology doesn't really help y'all observe a task—unless i of your teachers hire you, which merely happens in a program that staffs itself with agile working professionals, but that'southward non quite the same equally job placement assist. What Tin it practise? It can definitely teach you technique. It forces you lot to continuously work (if you are a good student), which implies continuous comeback. It absolutely spoon-feeds you networking opportunities (through events, trips, guest lecturers, school gallery shows, etc.). And it forces you to interact with your teachers and peers.

Then to sum all that up, Art Schoolhouse ideally gives you lot Technique and Connections. Can you get those without Fine art School?

In today's twenty-four hours and age in that location are more opportunities than ever to become instruction on Technique exterior of a traditional schoolhouse setting. There have always been ateliers and mentorships and seminars in person, merely the internet has made all of these things possible remotely. Many artists offering paid remote mentorships, either solo or through a collective program like SmArt School. There are literally thousands of recorded classes and demos (some amazing ones through this very blog) and podcasts and crowdcasts.

I caveat: please do research your mentorships before you begin them. An creative person that offers paid mentorships should have current and/or former students that y'all tin talk to about the mentor. Do your homework! Anyone tin telephone call themselves a coach or a mentor. Make sure that person has experience teaching as well as exist certain they are pedagogy what you lot desire to learn. Your mentor's style does not take to be the aforementioned exact style as yours, but there should be some correlations in mode, medium, manufacture, or philosophy. In other words make sure yous're not merely picking someone famous, y'all're picking someone that you want to learn something concrete from. Knowing that will help yous narrow downwards mentorships.

And a portion of all that coin y'all are saving by not going to school can exist budgeted towards seminars like Illustration Master Class, conventions similar Spectrum and IFCC, and trips to visit museums & cities where your chosen industry has hubs (NYC and London for publishing, LA for motion-picture show & blitheness, Seattle & Portland for video games, etc.) Some conventions even livestream, like Trojan Horse is a Unicorn.

Every bit far as Connections go, the internet helps here also. Although meeting in person is nice, at that place are plenty of artists I have relationships with purely through social media. Yous can promote yourself, join important conversations about your manufacture, become your work seen by Art Directors and clients, ask questions, and even become feedback on your work online. And over again, using some of the money you'd be spending on art school to fund trips to events to meet pros and Fine art Directors is a great investment.

So if you lot tin can get everything Art Schoolhouse provides through other means, then why would anyone go to Art School?

Because information technology'due south not easy to piece together an education on your own. Not everyone is self-motivated plenty to follow through. And you lot have to be extremely approachable (online and in person) to observe and replace the connections that you won't be getting automatically through schoolhouse. I honestly don't know if I would take had the career I've had if it wasn't for going to traditional Fine art School for Design.

There is as well a maturity attribute to this conversation — most teenagers are non self-disciplined enough or have enough life experience to proceed themselves dedicated to a cocky-designed education. In the US at to the lowest degree it is expected that most middle class and upper class high school graduates will go to higher automatically, fifty-fifty if they don't know what field they want to go into. This is apparently non fair, as all families/students tin't afford the opportunity to pay that much money to figure out what they want to do (or can beget to become even if they DO know exactly what field y'all wish to go into). Honestly I don't call up students that can beget it should automatically go directly into college if they don't know what they want to report. I certainly was forced to pick a direction way before I was ready. Why not work a year, or volunteer for a year in a program like AmeriCorp or the Peace Corp? Go to a cheaper customs higher for a year, or ii. Get a job, earn some money, try living on your own. Most 18 year olds are more interested in getting out of their parents' house than going to class — maybe it should be more than socially acceptable to let them practise that for a little while until they have a gustatory modality of the existent world and a amend handle on their career interests. I started off as pre-med, then switched to art. Perhaps a year or two between loftier school and college would have helped me have a ameliorate idea of what I wanted to do (and saved 2 years of pre-med tuition). I am lucky — my parents could manage to accept loans and pay for my education. I saved money past commuting from dwelling once I decided to transfer to the Schoolhouse of Visual Arts in NYC, but I was yet incredibly privileged to not kickoff off my developed life under thousands of dollars of pupil debt. Once I got to SVA, I worked my butt off convincing my teachers that I would make a fantastic assistant, and I worked equally an intern for Perry Ellis, MTV, for a boutique design/illustration studio, and for St. Martin's Printing all before I graduated. (SVA Design is i of those programs that insists teachers be working professionals.)

It all comes down to 2 things: How much yous/your family tin afford, and how self-disciplined yous are.

If you can set bated the coin without going into crippling debt than absolutely go to Fine art Schoolhouse! But be aware of the privilege and make the most out of every opportunity. Make friends, enter shows, impress your teachers, continue trips, and have your assignments seriously. Your career doesn't start when y'all graduate, your career starts as a freshman and your bosses are your teachers. Impress them, and opportunities follow.

However, if yous don't have the money for at to the lowest degree a big chunk of the price, then wait into other options. Perchance become a good community school teaching while you study fine art on the side. Perchance work a part time job and enroll in an atelier. If you can, work an art-related task every bit a studio banana for a working artist or in an fine art supply store. Take online classes and find remote and in-person mentors. Work on your portfolio. Work on information technology more. Go along learning and keep challenging yourself. Travel to museums and professional events. Continue working on your portfolio. I am really starting to believe Art School is a luxury, not a necessity. Information technology's absolutely easier and more user-friendly to go, but I tin't condone people taking on a debt so large that it volition ofttimes force them out of the career path that they took on the debt to study in the first identify.

To help you figure out whether you lot should go to art school or not, here'due south a handy (not-scientific) flow chart: