By Cameron Ibrahim
Staff Writer
With the rising cost of tuition and the crippling burden that student loan debts have become, it is no secret that college is expensive. However, with the ever growing fields of production and entertainment, students interested in these fields should explore the option of teaching themselves applicable skills and bypass the expensive option of college.
According to the Department of Labor statistics the cost of going to college in the United states is rising, and is currently around double where it was ten years ago. The College Board has released the statistic that the average total cost of college is $40,917 per year for a four year private college and $17,817 per year for four year public in state colleges and $30,704 for out of state colleges.
A student loan is a unique type of debt, as it cannot be lost through bankruptcy, where an individual defaults on their debt and essentially tell your creditors that you cannot pay them back. Therefore even if you have nothing and the loan does not cause “undue hardship” for the student they will still have to pay back a debt that has a size which rivals that of a traditional mortgage. This is known to be a major problem facing today’s youth when entering the workforce significantly in the red. A student attending college to get a career can leave with crippling student loan debts and a degree they may not even get a chance to use.
Artistic professions such as writing or fine art are notorious for the hand to mouth lifestyle many experience due to the low pay and subjective assessment of skill and success. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, operating under the Department of Labor, writers and those working in art only receive a median of around $50,000 per year or around $25 an hour, though 50% of people make less than this. The salary for someone just starting out would most likely be a much lower sum. This in turn would make it harder to pay off their now significant student loan debt
These are fields where the number of new job openings is rather low so there is no real guarantee that a student who pursues this will even find employment. Coupled with a large amount of debt that cannot be removed, this is a situation that would take years to recover from. Therefore, I would suggest that people in this situation, who are able to show a certain amount of dedication to their field, should make use of the wealth of knowledge available on the internet and attempt to establish themselves through their skills. Experience is crucial to success in these industries, and a body of established work and references can serve as the best resume there is for a job in one of these fields.
Computer programming and software designs are fields very similar to those mentioned before, differing only in medium and in that, software related fields are growing very quickly. This allows for more possibility for employment, and since the median pay for software developers is $93,350 per year and $74,280 for computer programmers, college would be a viable option; however there is an abundance of information about these topics on the internet, with readily available tools to practice with. Therefore taking the self taught option is effective, because you can use an established body of work to use to gain employment without accumulating substantial debt.
An issue, applicable to all fields, is that a student may struggle to master that particular subject on their own, or may want another’s perspective on the matter, which is given by the teacher. In these cases a local community college or occupational center, such as the Southern California Regional Occupation Center would be a much cheaper solution.
Students considering going into an artistic or creative field should put as much effort and research into that field as they can to try and create a sizable body of work and gain exposure within the field to try to avoid college’s crippling debt.
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