I can understand the concern, but the same thing holds true of any college student, if they suffer some major disability, what if a student ends up paralyzed, or becomes blind or something? What if a kid was getting a computer science degree, and had an accident where they couldn’t really do that any more, like both their arms become paralyzed? (and yes, I realize they might still be able to do it, using voice recognition to be able to program, but let’s assume they can’t). They would have spent a lot of money on a specific field that they wouldn’t be able to do any more.
What would happen is basically the same thing, they would need to re-adjust their life to the way they are. They still would have a college degree, and that can get you a job in something else based on that, given as people have talked on here before about, a lot of degrees are not career specific.
Think about this way, given the nature of music, even without becoming disabled, there are significant odds that within X years of graduating, they will have moved out of music, it is the nature of it. Within 10 years, if I remember the number correctly, something like at least 80% of Juilliard graduates are no longer in music…and they would have to adjust careers, so whether it was they couldn’t break into the field, or they for example got focal dystonia and couldn’t play, they would have to utilize the skills they had to do something else, whether it might be grad school in something, or get a job based on having a college degree with the skills they do have.
I agree with bridgenail, while I understand the thought behind this, the same would be true of any catastrophic injury where a college student, let’s say just after graduating, gets seriously hurt or disabled, and as far as I know there isn’t widespread disability insurance for college students as a whole. That the Medical association does that is interesting and I applaud it, but it isn’t common out there, basically if a music student is hurt like that it is the same as if any college student had a major catastrophe, they would do the best they could. As bridgenail said, disability insurance usually only is there when you are working and have income, it doesn’t operate on potential earnings that are lost by not even getting to be able to work in the field.