Musicamusica & compmom - Thank you very much for your thoughts and suggestions - I truly appreciate it. I’ll add a little bit more info here.
My D is a very committed and hard working girl. She has been learning Indian classical music since she was 5 years old. Ever since she was in elementary school, she always spoke about becoming a performing musician as her dream and she never once changed that decision in the past 10 years. She has been into school chorus and choirs throughout her school years. However, due to our lack of knowledge on classical music (western), we didn’t realize the importance of enrolling her into private voice lessons early enough. By the time we asked her to take up private lessons, she was already a high school senior - so she took private voice lessons only for 3 months prior to applying for colleges (late 2014). We also were new to CA and didn’t have much knowledge about Conservatories or Universities, etc. She only applied for Berklee (MA is our home state) and Manhattan School of Music. She didn’t go for in person auditions; but quickly recorded something and submitted with her minimal private lessons experience. She applied to few UCs and Sonoma State/SJSU. She almost got all of the UCs she applied for and both CSUs. Finally after a lot of debates and discussions, she finally joined SJSU.
She practices every day for few hours; but she started her western classical singing pretty late. She is determined to continue focusing on classical singing and that’s why she didn’t go for a B.A. Music in UCD and decided to go for a B.M. degree with voice performance.
We are not too bad as far as our financial situation is concerned. I’m a sole bread winner for the family and I earn enough to pay her current SJSU tuitions without Financial Aid. I’m also building equity of our home in MA so even if we end up in a significant student loan debt, we should be able to pay it off in the next 5-8 years. Of course, I rely on my paycheck to make the ends meet and don’t have any savings.
It’s just that my wife is totally paranoid (she never worked and has been a home maker since we got married - no regrets - she is a great mom/ wife and home maker) and keeps thinking that our D may not make a good living just with her singing. My point of view is that - my D is very good at teaching younger kids and I’m recommending her to start teaching aspiring students in both indian and western classical music and also do gigs. I’m also suggesting that she can take up Music Education as a 2nd concentration and take up a full time job in any school/college as a VP teacher. I have no doubts in my mind about her future. She only needs a couple of more years to start singing better than she is now in Western Classical and I know she is working hard every day.
Thank you again.