If you’re interested in poetry and/or literary fiction and have been reading the Internet at any point over the last decade, you’re probably at least vaguely aware that there’s some controversy over the MFA degree: the number of people pursuing it, the effect it has on American writing, and its overall usefulness in our capitalist culture. (Why get an MFA when you could be earning an MBA? Who’d rather get an F than a B, amiright?)
Stupid jokes aside, the questions surrounding the MFA—who should get one, when to get one, where to get one, &c &c—are in need of answer, for reasons both practical and academic.
A lot of people have written extensively on this topic, and one need only Google “should I get an MFA?” to see what they have to say; I won’t expend effort attempting what many have already done better and more thoroughly elsewhere. (For the widest possible divergence in views, see the opinions of Lan Samantha Chang [for] and Anis Shivani [against].)
I will, however, mention a few things that I think have been missed over the course of these discussions, as well as reiterate points I think are worth revisiting.
First and foremost: never, never, never go into significant debt for an art degree. For any reason. Ever.
One of the most common criticisms leveled against the MFA is that it is an expensive, time-intensive degree that offers the recipient a relatively low return on her investment. My response to this is to say that there is no reason to attend a program you can’t afford.
Want to go to school full time and not work? Cool! Make sure you apply only to fully funded programs that offer stipends for things like eating and not being homeless. Want to spend $100,000 over two years for your MFA? Also cool! Just make sure that, you know, you have $100,000 to spend on an art degree. (I don’t think this is a good use of your money, but it’s not my place to tell you what to do with your money.) An MFA is not like a JD or an MD—you’re not going to earn a salary after graduation that will allow you to pay down monstrous levels of debt.
Second, there’s no set window in which you have to complete the MFA. Some people go right out of college; some people go in their 40s. There’s no such thing as a “traditional” or “non-traditional” MFA student in the sense that these categories exist for undergraduates. If you really want to go to a certain program and you don’t get in the first time, you can reapply. You don’t have to settle for a program you don’t want or a program you can’t afford in the interest of time.
Yes, it’s harder to attend a program if you’re fully engaged in your career or you’ve got small children or you’re otherwise tied down geographically, but it isn’t impossible. And, frankly, if you’ve already got a solid career and a happy, healthy family, I wonder whether you really need the MFA in the first place. (Okay, now I’m really done with the stupid jokes.)
To my mind, the MFA is good for a whole bunch of things: qualifying you to teach undergraduates, getting you used to writing on a deadline, giving you access to a community of writers, giving you time to focus on your writing, meeting a lot of cool and influential writers, and introducing you to the work of poets and writers you otherwise might not have read are just a few examples. Thing is, a lot of these perks are attainable outside the structure of the MFA degree. If you’re working in, say, journalism, and you’ve got a couple of poet/writer friends already, you’ve pretty much got everything you need (unless you really, really want to teach creative writing at the college level.)
And there are a few bad habits I think are instilled (or at least abetted) by the MFA: emphasizing attention to contemporary writing at the cost of attention to the classics (i.e. anything written before World War One), editing by committee (though I’m inclined to think anyone who can be cowed by a room of ten graduate students would be similarly influenced outside of the workshop), and reliance on the artificial structure offered by class deadlines and requirements as a proxy for individual discipline chief among them. But I’m convinced that the benefits of attendance far outweigh the potential disadvantages, so long as you choose a program that’s a good fit and that won’t break the proverbial bank.
I’ll be graduating from New York University in May with no debt, having attended the program full time and having worked full time for two years. If I were to do the whole thing again, I’d do it exactly the same way. My experience is and has been wonderful, and while that’s undoubtedly thanks to the folks I get to work with as part of the program, it’s also due to my purposely choosing a program that fit my needs aesthetically, geographically, and financially. I’d encourage anyone thinking of pursuing an MFA to make their choice while considering the same.
I actually did go into debt to get my MFA, and I don’t regret it. I was able to have experiences while getting it that I never would have had otherwise—including work through my university that never would have happened without going for the MFA. That work experience, along with my writing and publications, led directly to a full time position that enables me to actually make my student loan payments, pay rent, and buy food! I’ll be paying for my MFA for a long time, but I’m okay with that.
I think the real issue is you simply must prepare yourself for professional life by earning useful experience and filling out your resume—no matter what degrees and/or level of education you pursue.
Everyone is in a different situation, is my point. What has worked for me so far may not work for someone else, but nor are student loans always a horrible choice for obtaining an advanced arts degree.
Great discussion!
Ah, great advice. Where have I heard this before? Everywhere: “If you’re going to get an MFA, please do it exactly like I did. Otherwise, I can’t recommend it. Get those same Fellowships I did. Oh, yeah, you’ll have to be me and duplicate my unique circumstances or else don’t do it. Did I mention I have no debt? Yeah, they must love my shit.”
The advice you’re hearing is “Don’t get an MFA if it means going into debt.” Period. There are now at least 40 programs that fully fund everyone they accept, with full tuition waivers and at least a modest stipend. And most cover health insurance.
And as long as the job prospects for MFA grads are next to nil, this is the future of graduate writing programs. (Low-residency MFA programs aside.)
I don’t think anyone’s saying that you shouldn’t go to Columbia if you can afford it. By all means, go.
MFA, U of MT 1981 here. It’s comforting to know that an advanced degree can still be achieved without incurring a debt load. Beyond that, among the best points here is that concerning the benefits of pursuing an MFA—community of writers, writing on deadline, chief among them—being available without the degree. Next, the mention of journalism in connection with that observation. In 1989 I walked away from a graduate/undergraduate teaching load at the U of AZ for a writing job with a NY Metro area daily. There, I quickly realized what today’s teeming masses in MFA workshops perhaps never will: that a 15-minute, readable, creative, thousand-word rewrite is not a compromise of anyone’s lofty principles. You go, Eric!
I’d add that because more and more people are buying the “Don’t go into debt for your MFA” thing, funded programs are saturated with applications and they’re harder than ever to get into. Acceptance rates of 1% or less aren’t uncommon.
So I wonder if this isn’t an inadvertent bonus: The quality of writers in the funded programs is going up.
What field guarantees its graduates a career and an amazing income? Someone mentioned healthcare–nope. It has become harder to make a living as a doctor than ever before. Ask anyone in medicine. An MBA you say? It’s certainly a power tool among degrees, but you still have to start a company that’s successful (and only a small percentage of them are) or land a job above the entry-level mailroom. An MFA or any arts degree offers the same road as other fields of study–meaning that the graduate still has to make his or her own way into the world. The advice ‘to avoid incurring a significant amount of debt’ applies to all degrees, unless you have a contract to become an indentured servant for an acceptable amount of time. As for me, I obtained an MFA, I loved the low residency program I attended, and I’m in my 40′s with enough savings that I paid as I went. It was right for me, but I make no claim that it’s right or wrong for anyone else. For those who have made the decision on their own to obtain an MFA degree, I highly recommend my alma mater, but I’m not using this space as an ad. I’m only saying that it’s a personal decision, and for those who want to pursue creative writing in a serious way, an MFA degree is a way to immerse yourself. Finances aside, I feel my writing skills are immensely stronger post MFA, my publishing contributions are beginning to pile up, and that feels like appropriately warm and cozy justification for all the effort. Bite the apple, or don’t–just be happy with your own personal decision.
MBA, MFA — apples and oranges in the same basket. One can make money in any number of ways, but perfecting an art form is beyond the scope of survival money. Idealistic? Yes, that’s what an MFA is all about and that’s why I value mine.
I get tired of this romantic notion that great writers are somehow born that way, that instruction quells creativity, that workshops make people who don’t have talent think they do because they follow the “craft” rules. The question, “Can creative writing be taught?’ is a question that drips with this sentimental notion about creativity. It pits the notion of industrialized, cookie-cutter instruction against the romantic, touched-by-God creative individual. Can a great writer hone her/his vision through practice, deep reading, instruction and criticism? Can good writers become better writers? The explosion of creativity coming out of MFA programs around the country demonstrate that they certainly can.
Well said, Mike!