IWasaTeenApe

Ok. I'm going to chime in because I've wanted to get this off of my chest for a long time. I received my BFA in 1999 and at that time there was no such thing as a graphic design MFA. As far as I was aware the people who taught graphic design in the two different art colleges that I attended had only BFAs and were working in the field as well as teaching. I don't know if you need an MFA to teach graphic design now. I'm sure you can be grandfathered in if you've been teaching before the GD MFA was invented, but I'm guessing you need one to get your first position if you haven't already been teaching somewhere. That is why I'm kind of in a hurry to get my MFA and get some teaching experience, because word is on the horizon of a studio art PhD, as if anyone can afford that or as if it is even necessary. I've been taking some digital imaging courses at a local community college over the past year and I know the teachers there have gotten their MFAs after teaching there for a couple of years and continued to teach while taking a part-time MFA program. I know some other courses are taught by "staff" who have only an associates degree from that community college. I really don't think a GD MFA will help advance your career as a designer the way it can open doors for someone in the fine arts. I really think your portfolio is everything in that field. I think a high school kid who has the skills could get hired if he/she could show a portfolio proving they are good. I am not a designer and have not researched any of this. I'm sure you know a lot more about it than me. But I wouldn't go that far in debt. I'm guessing you want to teach. But I think you can probably make more money working as a designer. What I meant to say in sentence after sentence of rambling is that I was very disappointed a few years ago when I started thinking about getting an MFA and I went online to discover that many schools were adding GD MFAs. It made me really feel like education is just a rip-off, purely a business. A majority of your time is spent working independently on your own work in a studio art MFA, but that isn't really the nature of design. There is always some sort of outside influence or idea that needs to be communicated in design. I guess I don't understand what you actually spend your time doing in a GD MFA program. It seems to me that you could be getting paid to do whatever it is that they are going to be having you pay them for. That's just my humble opinion. If you are really passionate about teaching and need the credential, then erase erase erase.

I applied for grad school straight out of undergrad. Got my Masters at the age of 24 (two months shy of 25) It's been a year since I graduated but I wasn't the only one I knew who did it. It depends on the school usually but it does happen. 

2) MFA is considered as the terminal degree in fine art / design. With a MFA degree, you are qualified to teach at most US universities.
 
Actually, the PhD in Design is becoming more and more of a requirement to teach and do research in academia around the world. It's more common in Australia and the UK, but it is fast becoming a requirement in the US too. Very few US schools offer the PhD though...a few that come to mind are CMU, IIT, Harvard, and NC State.