Berklee: Finances/Scholarships/Jazz Piano

College Majors Music Majors
1

Seeking insight on Berklee, not only for college, but more immediately to help us decide about the Aspire 5-week intensive this summer. He’s applying for scholarships to the summer program, but if he doesn’t get a full scholarship, we’ll need to decide if we should spend the money anyway. He’s already been to UNT, Shenandoah, and Eastman summer intensives.

He is very firm on going to college for music and making music his career. He’s an excellent jazz piano player, but doesn’t want to be stuck in a strict performance lane in college because he’s also interested in composition, production, and scoring. His love for jazz is more about improv and fusion styles than traditional/pure or big band jazz. We would like him to get industry skills in college, as well (music business, marketing, networking). I know that Berklee offers all of this.

He has high academic stats. He will audition well. Sight reading is so-so. Musicality and ear are very good.

Finances are BIG priority for us. We have a list of schools we’re tossing around and while Berklee is on the list, I am feeling pretty skeptical that we can afford if even if he gets a decent scholarship. Cost of living in Boston and not having dorm housing after freshman year is a concern.

He has some friends at Berklee and is certainly intrigued by the idea of the school. We toured, and there were things we liked and things we didn’t like as much.

I’m looking for personal experience regarding:
The scholarship amounts your kids got from Berklee
The amount you spent on off-campus living (housing, food, transportation to campus)
Any information about how their need-based and talent-based aid interact or combine

Is it even possible to spend under 20K all-in?

Also seeking any other insights about the school. Unusually great experiences/opportunities or any disappointments, challenges, not what you thought it would be, etc.

Has the Berklee brand/reputation and networking connections been as useful to your kid as you’d hoped?

Some of our other considerations are:
UNT (affordable with the instate tuition scholarship and amazing jazz reputation)
Loyola New Orleans (affordable with aid possibilities, great jazz town)
U Miami (jazz reputation, don’t know much about financials yet)
SUNY Purchase (affordable, great jazz reputation, close to NYC to gig, but has a strict stay-in-your-lane set-up)
New School (decent scholarship potential but cost of living a concern)
Temple U (likely get good scholarship, can live at home)
U of the Arts (ditto)
Various selective liberal arts colleges with good music programs that meet full financial need that he may have access to because of academic stats.

Thanks!!!

2

My knowledge of the Berklee College of Music is limited to a daughter who took a summer course there, plus two former guitar teachers who had studied there (I was the student of one, both my daughter and I were students of the other).

Yes. My daughter did learn quite a bit from her summer course at Berklee, and liked it quite a bit. Some of what she learned involved music and songwriting, but some did also include business aspects related to having a career in music (plus a bit of copyright law). I do not think that we spent $20k for the summer course (I do not think that we would have been willing to spend this much, and she did not have anything close to this at the time). After this she had a musical tour of Europe, decided that she got tired of the music and did not like travel, and switched to a different potential career (she is currently studying something very different). I think that the summer course might have helped if she had decided to stay with music, but I do not think that it ended up mattering given the path that she has taken.

Of the two guitar teachers, one ran out of money before getting his bachelor’s degree and found that he was not qualified to borrow enough to complete his degree. He had to drop out of Berklee and then transfer to an in-state public university. He ended up with a degree from his in-state public university, plus debt from his study at Berklee. He would have been better off starting at his public university in the first place. He had to give a lot of guitar lessons to pay off his college debt.

The other was getting a master’s degree at Berklee. He was a very, very good guitar player, a very good teacher, and a nice person. He seemed to be able to afford it, but I have no idea how and never discussed this with him. I am guessing that the guitar lessons that we took from him had something to do with how he was able to afford to attend Berklee, but I have no idea whether a scholarship or family money also helped. He also seemed to enjoy his studies at Berklee, and was good at a wide range of types of music. He specifically taught me both electric guitar and classical guitar (as a result of this the day that Les Paul died I played “Lágrima” (tears) on my electric guitar in his memory, but that is another issue).

1 Like
3

Thanks for the input. My comment about whether Berklee was doable for undre 20K wasn’t for the summer program, but for college! The 5-week summer program is about 9K without scholarships, which is a lot.

4

I did wonder about this. I would be rather surprised if it comes out at $20,000 per year or less to attend Berklee as a regular student, but we never got to the point of finding out.

I do think that a student studying music in university should try quite hard to avoid taking on any debt if this is remotely possible.

1 Like
5

certainly it is instructor and genre specific. But Jazz friends we know leaned away from Berklee. The other schools you have mentioned from Miami to Temple far superior for jazz, not perhaps from other forms of music. We know students who turned down full jazz scholarships for berklee for pretty good (albeit not full) at other schools.
I don’t specifically know jazz pianists situation though.

1 Like
6

Ok, this is helpful to hear and it makes some sense. My son isn’t all about jazz, but jazz is definitely at the root of what he does as a musician; he is into all kinds of music and wants to get into production and composition, as well. Some of programs superior for jazz can be somewhat limiting in scope. He doesn’t want to spend 4 years nerding out on jazz.
We have to find the right balance at the right price.

7

Oh yeah, we are a no-doubt-allowed family, especially considering that so far I’ll have two kids getting undergrad degrees in music.

1 Like
8

Have you looked at USC, UCLA? I understanding is the industry, production aspect may have some good access/connections there. And my daughter has had a great experience with the people she worked with from there, but she is not looking into production side at this time

1 Like
9

While they have great programs, USC and UCLA may not be the best to pursue for full tuition scholarship. I think the others on OPs list look more likely to fit what they are looking for in terms of finances.

2 Likes
10

California is a little too far from home.

11

Hi there! My son is loving the jazz program at Loyola, and the city has incredible live music every night of the week. I can tell you the school is really flexible about shifting and adding industry or tech courses.