Debt?

[Benton73]

What is a normal amount of debt you think is acceptable for MA/PhD in Art History? As we all know we won't be starting with 6 figures or anything close. I'm curious how much others are taking out and my financial anxiety is starting to set in.

[roving99]

For me, 0$. I would NOT have pursued the MA/PhD if I was not fully funded. It’s not worth it - the time it will take to get you out from under that debt considering the academic job market just won’t add up. Especially now since we have no idea what the job market will be looking like the next few years. 

[venusofwillendork]

For a PhD program, $0.  If you get into a doctoral program and they do not offer funds, it's not worth it to accept the offer.  I know that there are very limited MA programs with full funding, and that it's difficult to get into a doctoral program without an MA. 

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-postsecondary/reports/2020/01/13/479220/graduate-school-debt/ < This article breaks it down in pretty specific detail. It talks about using a percentage of your income to decide how much of a loan you should take out. 

If you're looking at adjuncting, you might make between 20-25k/year for the next few years after your degree (https://hyperallergic.com/516702/how-much-does-an-adjunct-actually-make/). That's like a 20k loan to be able to take out -- 10% of your income over 10 years. With an MA program, you won't be able to get a TT position.  You'll either need to continue in school (defer your loans), and still may need to adjunct for some time even with a PhD.

But say you play your cards right.  You take out some loans for your MA, defer them through your PhD (without taking a gap year in-between, otherwise you'll need to start paying after 6 months).  You land a TT job.  These start at 40-50k and seem to land in the 60-70k range on average (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mWZL98MP01YNrPFmg9NOi4b1CmoPWh2r33nxjss40xI/edit?fbclid=IwAR0eINbPuxSnDJnc9r0cLmjCkwp3ylpCSorlPfPMiif9OJAh_yCg-CTGqck#gid=2015163110).  That could put your loan limit as high as maybe 45k.  But you would need to be very, very lucky for that to work in your favor.

Maybe you don't want to be in academia.   If you don't have an art history background, and your program doesn't require internships during the degree, you might not have the experience needed for it.  You might need to jump around to temporary fellowships in the meantime.  Fellowships I've seen that a qualified BA or MA student might get can make 14-20k.   Curatorial Assistant positions (appropriate for an MA) make between 30-50k. They're very competitive.  And if you want to be a curator (after getting your PhD), that's maybe 50k-80k depending on the size of the museum (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14_cn3afoas7NhKvHWaFKqQGkaZS5rvL6DFxzGqXQa6o/edit?usp=sharing).  

A general timeline for paying off student loan debt is 10 years.  With some of these lowest-paying positions, you're looking at a cap of around 20k.  At the highest, 60-70k loan cap.  I would personally be incredibly anxious about pushing the limit.  With the state of our world (even before the pandemic, and even more so now), pushing the limit on how much you can take out is not a good choice.  It's likely that there will be even more precarious employment in our futures, and having a massive debt will only put more pressure on you and on me, and will only make things more precarious.

[birthofthereadership]

I chose my MA specifically because it offered the opportunity to get my MA without taking on any debt at all. I'm also receiving funding for TA and readerships. I worked for several years in museums after undergrad, which gave me the perspective that museums pay so little -- even with an MA -- that I would have a hard time repaying loans after a program, even in a higher role and with a larger salary.

I strongly recommend applying to MA programs that offer funding. In my opinion, it's not worthwhile to do the degree if you are taking on debt to do it, though absolutely worth it if you can do it without doing so. 

[PhDdropout]

As stated unanimously above, taking on debt for a graduate degree in the arts is not advisable. One thing to consider is that even if you end up in a funded MA program, your stipend will probably not cover all of your living expenses. I had a stipend of 20k per year. I still had to take out loans to afford to pay my living expenses. Most college towns are not cheap places to live. I was in a fairly large city where surviving on 20k a year wasn't going to work for me.

Also, many universities fail to spell out additional fees that might cut into your stipend. Like, are they covering health insurance? Or is that cost out-of-pocket? Also, where I studied, the school of the arts charged all grad students 3k a year for the use of their facilities. Just something to consider. Ultimately, I was in a MA/Phd program and decided to bow out with the MA. Best decision ever.

Also, as stated above, the starting salary for most arts jobs is LOW. My first job started at 38k. After years of working my way up, I now make 50k, still low in comparison to other jobs one could get without even going to grad school. Factor in the state of the world right now, and an already competitive field is getting more competitive.