Endowments for Stand alone art schools and art programs

College Majors Visual Arts and Film Majors
1

<p>I always believed that having a higher endowment improves the quality of the school. This usually results in more scholarship money and/or higher pay for professors or better facilities. Accordingly, I have researched several stand alone art schools and posted their endowments as of 2004. All materials came from the Chronicles of Higher Education web site:</p>

<li>RISD $253,000,000</li>
<li>California Institute of the Arts (Calarts): $78,000,000
3.Pratt Institute: $47,000,000</li>
<li>Minn College of Art and Design $31,671,000</li>
<li>MICA: $30,000,000- $40,000,000 ( not totally clear on their endowment)</li>
<li>Ringling School of Art and Design $12,000,000</li>
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<p>As you can tell, RISD and Calarts have the highest endowments for stand alone art programs, and Calarts has many more majors other than visual art.Most of the other stand alone visual art programs that I have interviewed seems to have endowments between $10,000,000 and $30,000,000. </p>

<p>There are some schools that have very noteworth art and design programs that are NOT stand alone art programs. Four examples are as follows:</p>

<li>Syracuse University: $770.000.000</li>
<li>Carnegie Melon University: $770,000.000</li>
<li>Rochester Institute of Technology: $472,000,000</li>
<li>New School University (which includes Parson’s College of Design):$129,000,000
The endowments for the latter four schools have to be taken with the undertanding that they have a number of other programs to fund besides their art and design program including expensive science programs. Also,these schools have a lot more students than found in a stand alone art program. Thus, while they have a higher endowment, the endowment per subject area or per college or per student may not be more than that of the better stand alone art programs.</li>
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<p>Hope you find all this useful.</p>

2

<p>There are also some LAC’s such as Vassar and Williams with excellent studio art facilities. Williams has an endowment of 1.3 bil, which enables them to offer need-based scholarships that none of the art schools can match. CMU also can be generous with both merit and need based aid.
As RISD has a nice sized endowment this doesn’t filter down to the students who qualify but are not offered any aid. Top LAC’s have tried to diversify their campus both economically and culturally so not to have a campus of only rich students. Hopefully this practice will permeate the better art schools as well.</p>

3

<p>What you say about Williams endowment is true. In fact, per pupil, it is one of the most heavily endowed schools in the US. However, Williams does have its problems for would be visual artists:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>It is VERY, very hard to get into. Two of my friends’ kids went there and both kids had at least 1500 on their SATs plus amazing grades.</p></li>
<li><p>It is a liberal arts school with the emphasis on liberal arts. If you want to go into visual arts, you are not going to take as many art courses as you would in the schools that I mentioned above.</p></li>
<li><p>The visual arts at Williams ( if I remember correctly) is fine art. Thus, if you are interested in graphic design, sculpture, ceramics, new media etc, they are a lot more limited with very limited offerings.</p></li>
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<p>However, if you want some good fine arts and get an excellent liberal arts education, not to mention meet some of the most brilliant kids in the US, Williams would be a good choice.</p>

4

<p>Yes Williams is very selective academically but RISD is as well. There are kids who work on their portfolio for a year to get in. My feelings are that they should try to help more talented students with their tuition.</p>

5

<p>Nopoisonivy, you may be right. Maybe RISD should offer more scholarships. However, art schools have a lower endowment than that of other colleges. Thus, they can’t really afford to give large amounts of scholarships. This is just reality. For what it’s worth, RISD does have the largest endowment of any stand alone art program in the US plus they have a very nice profit making museum.</p>

<p>I must also say that I personally prefer the RISD approach to that of Carnegie Melon. CM has very high tuition, over $31,000 per year plus high fees. Also, for a school of their size, they don’t have a huge endowment. Thus, the richer parents are subsidizing the poorer ones to a great extent. I personally don’t like this especially if you are on the paying side!</p>

6

<p>I totally agree with your last statement and understand that RISD has limited resources. Remember full paying parents alone are not funding fin-aid students but these funds come from various sources (donations, etc).
Pratt for example is working with less $$ but tends to be more forthcoming with their tuition discounts (scholarships).
Bottom line is the RISD is a school for very talented kids who can afford full freight. I think that many kids that are artistic and have been dreaming of art school might have to adjust their thinking and look to a good LAC. It is an option that I think should be kept open. Many RISD grads do not end up working as artists but many have great jobs in museums and other administartive art related jobs.</p>

7

<p>I hate to pierce your bubble but good lacs are at least as expensive, if not more so, than RISD. Moreover, not all the LACs are that forthcoming with aid. Those that are,usually give aid in the form of Loans! Moreover, I know of no LAC that gives the same intensive art training as a good stand alone art school. However, if you want to get a good broad based education, a good LAC would certainly be a fine choice.</p>

8

<p>Loans are a component of any aid package unless you are talking about Williams or Amherst.
<a href=“http://www.williams.edu/admin/news/releases.php?id=868[/url]”>http://www.williams.edu/admin/news/releases.php?id=868&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I agree 100%. I was only suggesting a good LAC with a studio art program as an alternate means for the student with an art school education in mind.
Of course if an art school education is the only thing that will work for that student then they will have to fund it.</p>