Posted on 08/08/2017 9:50:37 AM PDT by Theoria
Twelve years after finishing Harvard’s graduate theater program, Katierose Donohue still pays almost as much in student loans each month — about $650 — as for her share of the rent in Los Angeles. She recently stopped hosting her monthly sketch comedy show, “Ma’am,” because she didn’t always break even on her $200 budget. She’s now working side jobs as a dog walker and a social media copywriter, after past gigs serving at Starbucks and handing out free cigarettes for Camel.
She’s never missed a loan payment, but there’s no end in sight: She borrowed nearly $75,000 to attend the American Repertory Theater Institute, or A.R.T. Institute, at Harvard and still owes about $54,000.
“I can’t afford to make my craft, even though I’m regularly booking work,” Ms. Donohue said. “One fellow alum said to me, ‘Getting this degree basically guaranteed that I wasn’t able to pursue it as a career because I immediately had to get a job to pay for the education I received.’”
Most young actors don’t face graduate school debt like this — yet it is common for those who attend the A.R.T. Institute. Despite being at the world’s wealthiest university, institute students receive modest financial aid and leave with a median of $78,000 in debt in exchange for a master of liberal arts degree from the Harvard Extension School. In contrast, the loan debt average for master of fine arts students at Yale School of Drama tends to be around $14,000, a financial-aid officer said. At Juilliard, the average student loan debt for the four-year undergraduate drama program is $27,000.
The steep repayment burdens have been a straitjacket on students and their career aspirations for years. But now they have become a major problem for Harvard and the A.R.T. Institute, too.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
A student loan for a theater degree at an Ivy League college. Consider it a tax on stupid people.
I can see her at a cocktail party: Yes, I have a degree from Hah-vud.
Sick.
Harvard’s endowment’s earnings are sufficient to make the place 100% tuition free.
Harvard is ripping off their students (in many ways).
If student loan debt was made dischargeable in bankruptcy like other debt this sort of nonsense would clear up quickly. No sane banker would risk $75K on a theater degree.
This doesn’t excuse the boundless iidiocy of the borrower in this case.
Too bad she didn't perform a simple Google search before she chose a major: Highest Paying Bachelor Degrees
But that would have required some common sense which she seems to lack.
“, ‘Getting this degree basically guaranteed that I wasn’t able to pursue it as a career because I immediately had to get a job ....”
Really ...
You know, at this point in my life I have come to the sad conclusion that I cannot help everyone. Equally sad is that someone would voluntarily acquire $78k of debt for an advanced art major degree. I mean what are you thinking? Do you no possess any support network that would talk some common sense into you? No parents? Friends? Derelicts down the street?
Hate to say this, but she is likely a lifetime member of the 47% club.
“..handing out free cigarettes for Camel. “???
Isn’t that a death penalty case?
Sucks for her that Hillary wasn’t elected.
That student debt would have been wiped clean by now. Wiped as clean as her e-mail servers.
I'm sure it impresses all her co-workers at Starbucks.
To which you reply, "I didn't ask, sweetheart. You're the one with the tray. How about shaking your tail and getting me a scotch-and-soda."
I believe if you don’t make very much you can have the payment adjusted.
Student debt is largely a wealth transfer to the otherwise-unemployable liberal cognitive elite.The aspirational middle class enters lifetime indentured servitude to support those parasites. Upper education is such a scam.
Plans only require you to pay 10 to20% of discretionary income. Otherwise very steep.
Well, that’s a dramatic problem. (Badoom tish.)
The theater isn’t what it used to be. It’s full of trash now. It will chew you up, spit you out.
I think of a fellow I knew in 1976, he was the high school favorite for his name up in lights. I even kind of envied how he was the center of attention, and competed on the only plane I could — piano playing. But alas, theater was turning into trash even then. The high school put on “Gypsy Rose Lee.” Guess who got to be the striptease act piano player. Whoops, Mr. Conductor, I am supposed to play that? Well at that time it was all the same to me if it was cool. So I learned the striptease piano music and played it.
Not that this was a new show even then, but maybe for a high school to put it on was a slide. Nobody stripped in the actual production, but it got some curious attention from the school administrator.
Anyhow, well this fellow. I’ve Googled around for his name in a theatrical context. Neither hide nor hair of him. Name up in lights? I wonder if it ever even got printed on a matchbook.
Theater can be used for glorious things... or for trash. In a trash era, this is not a wise investment.
I think I see the problem right there . . . .
Another good reason for universal basic income. These poor Harvard graduates can’t pay their pills without getting a real job. Plumbers, mechanics, construction workers should be forced to fund this person’s theater hobby so she doesn’t have to work.
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