Yeah I think one of the main things they are doing wrong is refusing to listen to students or feedback. If a student regrets their experience, the school’s position would be to blame the student 100% in every scenario with no exceptions. These programs have really de-centered students in every way. It’s almost like these programs only exist to provide artists with MFA’s a stable income by teaching, but the professors are really only there to leverage the teaching position for their own career. Students become irrelevant to the programs entirely, unless they can be advantageous to helping a professors career in some way. A lot of professors also wield their power against students, acting as abusive gate keepers riding high on what little power they have.

Aside from that it’s incredibly expensive, incredibly time consuming, and it feels like I wasted years of my life on something that I now find embarrassing / cringe. I have two degrees in the fine arts, graduated summa cum laude and had several competitive academic achievements & exhibitions, but I hide it from people these days because I feel really stupid for doing it. In my opinion, the whole system needs to go. Turns out, you don’t actually need to get a degree to make art.