“If you want to work in a creative field, you’re probably better off not majoring in it.”

 

Author Noah Berlatsky, from The Atlantic, addresses the issue of whether having a degree in the arts leads to a successful career as a working artist.

“Out of the 2 million art graduates in the nation, only 200,000, or 10 percent, earn their living primarily as artists. The vast majority who get arts degrees, then, are like me. They may work in an arts-related profession (as, for example, as art or music teachers), but they aren’t working artists.

Even more strikingly, people without arts degrees are becoming working artists. Only 15.8 percent of working artists have a B.A. or B.F.A. The rest have a range of college credentials—in communications (9.3 percent),  social sciences (9.3 percent), or the liberal arts (7.9 percent), to name the three largest groups.”

To read the entire article click here.