stofo

You absolutely must go to grad school where you want to live and work as an artist. The most important thing that happens in grad school is the networking that takes place. If you graduate and move to another state, how do you expect a gallery or another artist to ever look at your work? Galleries do not take submissions. Everyone who I went to grad school with that went on to be an artist afterward gained those opportunities through networking that happened in school. A reputable grad school will have an open studios event and galleries will come to look for emerging talent.

The percentages of artists at commercial galleries is very misleading. The problem is that the art world has gone through major changes in the last 20 years. 20 years ago, you could make a living off of selling your work through a gallery with no degree at all. There are many older art professors with no MFA, some with no degree at all. With the IBR program, it is irrelevant to consider the high cost of tuition a factor (or any kind of funding or scholarships for that matter) in either getting or not getting a graduate degree. This program reduces my loan payments from $1,700/mo for 20 years down to $24/mo for 20 years.

I will be at the open house, my MFA opening reception is that night, I'll see you there.

Hello, yes, I go to CGU. Amazing, huge, well lit studios, probably 12x16 feet with 14 ft ceilings, bigger and better than the studios at SAIC. Lots of 1on 1 attention from faculty, access to LA galleries, this means the monthly visiting artists are represented by a major LA galleries and are available to have a studio visit with you. Gallery owners and curators do studio visits sometimes and if you work hard and make good work, there is a very real possibility of being represented in a legitimate LA gallery after you graduate. There is no reason to go to grad school unless it is near LA or New York! This is where you network and meet people, you will not have an art career without these types of connections. The down side is the cost, it is about as expensive as every other private grad program, there is no undergrad here, so you cannot get paid for teaching, or gain legitimate teaching experience at CGU. The teaching assistantships they offer are more like classroom observations. The solution to the cost is the government's Income Based Repayment plan which lets you repay your loan based on your income, not how much you owe. Another down side is it is not merit based, everyone is treated exactly the same, you draw a number out of a hat for everything from what studio you choose, to scheduling classes, to scheduling your thesis exhibition. There is some fellowship money but it is evenly distributed among all students.

Income Based Repayment. Google it, it sounds to good to be real, but it is real because it is on the same piece of paper you sign from the government when you accept your federal loans. IBR means paying your loan back based on your debt, not your income, making your monthly payments hundreds instead of thousands of dollars. The loan is forgiven in 20 years.

its not the general climate at claremont, its the general climate for all mfa programs. do the research for yourself and you will see that student loan payments can be over a thousand dollars a month once you graduate, wether from claremont, yale, or wherever. your best chances, which are very slim, upon graduating are to be an adjunct professor and maybe sell a few paintings here and there. the only way an mfa program is financially beneficial is if you get it mostly funded or go to a cheap state school, like csulb.

those paintings are really bad. but, a lot of an mfa program is about talking about your work, if these paintings are framed in a certain kind of language then they might be on to something, but whatever that something is, i don't personally care because at the end of the day, i am still looking at an ugly painting.

they give around 7,000 to 10,000 dollars to 2nd year students, all 2nd year students get the same amount, it depends on how much money they have each year i think. this is a very small amount of money considering tuition is 20k a semester, being a ta pays $700 a semester which makes it not worth the time. mfa programs exist to make money, there is no promise or even an assumption that graduates of these kinds of programs will do anything after school that they did not do before school in terms of having a job. use an online student loan calculator to see how many years it takes to pay off a loan at $1,000 a month, its a lot.

most cal state fullerton mfa students do NOT have studios or are part time students, this is insane. cal state long beach is one of the biggest art schools on the west coast and is comparable to cal state fullerton and you will probably get a studio. i go to claremont and i think it is amazing. the problem is that it is expensive and there is no funding. the government's income based program takes care of that, look up income based repayment or IBR online, because it sounds too good to be true and people don't believe me when i write about it in these forums. claremont has some of the best mfa studios in the country in my opinion. 14 ft. ceilings, 3 kinds of lighting, lots of space. cal arts and art center are not a good match if you have a studio practice.

Michael Darling, who was a curator at Seattle Art Museum and now a curator at Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago..."UW MFA program is the #! thing holding back the Seattle art scene". What's wrong with art in Seattle? Our art schools, according to SAM's outgoing contemporary curator. by Jen Graves - Features - The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper

The financial situation is horrible at CGU, as it is with 95 percent of other MFA programs in the country. There is no funding. MFA seekers make it sound like the go to grad school for free and get tuition waivers for being TAs and stuff. This is rarely true. A few people at school like SAIC, RISD, etc. will get funding, these are private schools. Nobody in the state of california is getting funding because they are a TA. People on this forum make it sound like MFA candidate deserve half off tuition because they are a TA. Grad school at a private school is expensive and there are not many funding options. HOWEVER, anyone who pays attention to anything know about the IBR government repayment plan. I thought it was too good to be true myself, but it was in the fine print when I signed my promissory note for my FASFA loans. If you cannot afford to repay your loans, a payment plan will be made for you up to 15 percent of your annual income and then your debt will be cancelled in 20 years. Someone will reply to this post and talk about "but what if you are married" or "it depends on how much you make". You would have to make over 100k a year for it not to take effect with you, and that isn't your situation. IBR takes my $1,500/mo payment down to about 10 percent of that.

I lived in seattle for a few years. My wife did her bfa at UW. It is not an amazing school for art. The grad studios are shabby and far from campus. The MFA has a great reputation for ceramics and public art only. I recently read an article explaining that UW is the reason Seattle has a crappy art scene, i believe it.

I am currently an MFA student at Claremont Graduate University. It is a great school. The studios are very large with 14 ft. ceilings, track lighting, and pristine walls. Your studio looks like a mini-gallery, which is great to see your work in a gallery context or if you are an installation artist. There is a large outdoor work area with plenty of room for sculptures as big as you can imagine. It is 75 degrees in Claremont this week so you can work outdoors most of the year. It is about an hour from LA which means the faculty and visiting lecturers are all practicing LA artists. Someone who graduated last year just had a big show at Ace Gallery, one of the biggest in the country. I don't think it should be a very difficult school to get into. There were several empty studios this semester.

Someone I know has been accepted into MFA fibers at Long Beach and studio art MFA at Los Angeles. Does anyone have any info or an opinion about which school she should choose? They have the same ranking. I think the Long Beach Art School is one of the biggest in the country. She does sculptural/fiber work.

My wife will be going to Cal State Long Beach and I will be going to Claremont. My wife does not drive and so we plan on living in or near Long Beach. What is it like commuting from Long Beach to Claremont? Is it doable? What are some good in between areas where we can live that she can access by public transit? Any other info about Long beach is helpful! thanks.

I am going to CGU for the MFA program. My wife is going to Cal State Long Beach for the MFA program. So, we will be living near Long Beach and I will be commuting. I wont be going on 210, I'll be driving south of LA. What do you know about the traffic situation? How long will it take me to drive? Is this a reasonable commute or am I crazy? I'm planning on only driving early morning/late night. Any advice or info about GCU in general is also helpful!

I interviewed at SAIC for painting/drawing. When I got my rejection letter in the mail a few weeks later, they offered me admission into the post-bac. SAIC interviews about 100 out of 500 painting applicants and accepts about 25 out of that 100?? They said I needed the post-bac to learn stuff I need to know in order to be a good MFA applicant, which is a good point because I do not have a bfa and have only taken a handful of studio art classes. Hoever, I was accepted into other schools and chose an MFA program over post-bac.

hello. does anyone have any info on cal state long beach? i'm wondering about their visiting artist program, reputation of faculty, any info regarding the fibers/textiles program or info about studios (some cal state schools do not guarantee studios for mfa students!). thank you.

I had an unpleasant application experience with one school at well with Cal State Long Beach. I sent all my application materials in one package. They emailed me and said they lost my portfolio so I mailed another one. Then they said they didn't have my transcripts, so I had to send them again. They sent me TWO rejection letters! one from the department and one from a grad admissions office. I have a friend applying there who STILL has not heard if they are rejected or accepted. Are schools still making decisions? I think you could send them an email, but it probably wont make a difference.

@thanksverybody I think you should take out the loans. You are getting a degree in graphic design, where you can actually get a job and pay back loans. The government just passed laws about eliminating the middle man for federal loans. There is also a program about income based loan repayment. Since all loans are now federal loans, yes your loans are eligible for this program. You pay 15% of your income for 25 years and then your loan is forgiven. It doesn't matter if you make $10,000 a year or $100,000 a year. It doesn't matter if your wife works and has dual income or whatever. This is how I will pay back $117,000 of loans at Claremont. So far, the only response I know of for MFAs is to get into a program that is mostly funded. But, there has to be a lot of MFA people out there with out a lot of funding, I havnt hear their opinions on the issue yet.

I am already approved for 40k worth of federal Stafford loans. I will probably get some sort of Grad Plus loan also, which will be eligible as well. I plugged these figures into an online calculator: if I make 40k my first year and I have 40k of eligible federal loans, I am still approved for IBR and it will shave a few hundred dollars off my monthly payment. I already mentioned this earlier, these private schools do not offer a lot of aid. For example, I know SAIC costs about $120,000 for 2 years of tuition plus room and board and everything else you need. They only offer one full scholarship and maybe one or two partial scholarships per department. If you plug those numbers into a loan calculator, your paying over a thousand dollars a month for 10 years. I think it would be difficult to pay this even graduating from medical or law school, how will you do it with an art degree? A lot of people on this site are applying for high ranking expensive private schools. Are all these schools giving scholarships to every student? It seems like there must a lot of MFA students at schools like RISD, or CCA, or SAIC, or any other expensive private schools that are facing at least 5 digit loans when they graduate. How much do you MFA candidates plan on making your first year of graduating?

http://www.finaid.org/loans/ibr.phtml What do you think about Income Based Repayment? This sounds too good to be real, I am probably missing something here. According to legislation the President recently passed, monthly loan payments can be based on income, not debt, if you are eligable. According the the calculator, If I make 35k a year after graduating I will only pay about $300 a month for 70k of debt and the loan will be forgiven after 20 years.

There must a lot of other people in the same situation. These private schools do not offer a lot of aid. For example, I know SAIC costs about $120,000 for 2 years of tuition plus room and board and everything else you need. They only offer one full scholarship and maybe one or two partial scholarships per department. If you plug those numbers into a loan calculator, your paying over a thousand dollars a month for 10 years. I think it would be difficult to pay this even graduating from medical or law school, how will you do it with an art degree?

I need some advice...I'm planning on going to Claremont, the only school that accepted me. I've roughly figured that I'll have about $70,000 of loans when I graduate, after I do all the assistanships and work studies I can. Is this worth it? I don't like student loans, but I think I could handle the monthly payments if it were a 20 year loan. I'm confident I will have steady employment when I graduate making aboutt 30k/year. I'm also thinking of just reapplying next year for state schools where I would have better chances for funding. Any thoughts? Anyone else dealing with financial aid issues?

I know some people on here have gotten acceptance letters. I called saic a while ago and they said they sent out their last letters on 3/18. If you are in China, it might take a few extra days to get to you.