The Toronto Portraits - Dylan Hayward

The idea that a university's job is to provide you with tools for your career is actually a fairly new thing, that's what colleges and polytechnics were for, universities are supposed to be about learning for learning's sake, to make you an educated member of society, but not necessarily to prepare you for the workplace. That's obviously changing these days, and I think that's a real shame, because the value of becoming an educated member of society and learning for pleasure is being trumped within the orgs by career.

But the idea that universities don't take responsibility for their students careers is an attempt to shift the blame for what may have been a badly thought out decision to go in the first place. University can be used as a very expensive procrastination tool, and that's nobody's fault but the student's. I'm sure arts students realise they're getting into a competitive industry, and expecting to be handed a career at the end of it is more than any university could ever promise.

Hi Rich,

First, I would contend that the primary objective of universities ought to be to prepare students for a career. At a price tag of approximately $25,000 for a basic undergrad (more if you factor in lost income) plus an additional $75,000 for the taxpayer (give or take), I would argue that schools are obliged to provide the student with long-term economic benefit in exchange. Otherwise, at this price, learning for the sake of learning wouldn't be worth it for the vast majority of people.

So if we accept that the primary objective of universities is to provide the skills needed to succeed in the workplace then we can see that by and large bachelors of fine arts are not in demand and many, perhaps the majority, end up working in fields that have little relation to their training. If this is true and if my logic is correct up to this point then we can conclude that art schools are generally not achieving their primary objectives (or they've just prepared you for a career that doesn't exist, depending how you look at it.)

If we want to look at this ethically, we could examine a hypothetical situation in which a university is toying with the idea of expanding their fine arts department from 4000 students to 20000 students. Now assuming that there are a set number of new jobs available per year (which we can say is mostly true) they will be opening up spots at their university knowing that the job market cannot handle the new surplus of graduates. Is this morally wrong? Or is it the fault of the students for registering in the program? (which will likely happen since art schools have no shortage of applicants.)

I would argue that society as a whole would profit from some additional restrictions on the number of graduates in particular fields ? art school in particular.

To give an example of where a surplus of graduates can cause damage we could look at law schools in the United States. Tier 4 schools average around $25,000 a year in tuition and it's not uncommon for graduates to owe over $100,000 by graduation. With full-time starting salaries averaging $50,000 pretax and a significant amount of unemployment, this debt can be a significant financial challenge for many people. I believe this shows some of the problems that can result from an oversupply of graduates.

To sum things up: I do believe that society would profit from additional restrictions on the numbers of graduates. I do believe that universities are responsible for the success of their graduates (although obviously this is a shared responsibility.)

My time in film school has ultimately been beneficial and has opened up some doors career-wise. That said, my criticisms of the system still apply.