During my junior year of college, one of the full-time faculty members sat all four(!) music majors down and advised us about the future. Of course, we were all nervous about our prospects for continuing on, finding a job, making a living (unfortunately finding a job is not synonymous with making a living), etc. His advice certainly did not mitigate this fear. Instead, he warned, "Don't go to grad school unless you absolutely have to. It's just not worth it. It's a lot of money and it's almost impossible to get a professorship these days." I remember that at the time, in my youthful innocence and idealism, I felt slightly resentful of this comment. What did he mean there weren't jobs?! Surely if I worked really hard and wrote good music I would be able to get a job somewhere!
Looking back, I'm impressed that my professor was actually willing to talk about something that so many others in academia tend to avoid. I now realize exactly what motivated my professor to give this speech and I'm much more appreciative of his honesty and integrity. What motivated him was a deep sense of moral obligation--not to his field, but to his students. The academic job market is pretty brutal (especially in this economy) and in many ways his assessment of the situation is accurate. Occasionally you will hear someone refer to the academic job market as a Ponzi scheme. To be fair, this is an exaggeration and an oversimplification. Many graduate students do know what they are getting into (in terms of student loans, job prospects, etc.). Many are happy just to further their education in the hope that they will be able to make it work one way or another, and graduate schools should not be blamed for accepting these students. That said, the number of graduating doctoral students far outstrips the number of available academic teaching jobs. It is a shame to see so many individuals--individuals who may be unaware of all of the details--leaving school potentially with mountains of debt and few financial opportunities.
Yes, I do hear of the occasional composer landing a teaching job, but they are very few and very far between--especially for the more sought-after (tenure track) positions. Moreover, when I get the monthly job list from the university where I did my master's (a list that offers a compilation of the available teaching jobs around the country), I see a growing number of adjunct positions and what I call the "jack-of-all-trades" professorships, where you somehow have to be an expert in composition, theory, musicology, AND music technology.
Looking back, there is much to be lauded in my professor's advice...his advice was much more noble than, say, the administration that encourages a student to go into debt in order to continue in a field where there are hardly any positions. Generally speaking, we, as a country, need to examine our priorities (personally, I think education--and not just a market-valued version of education--should be more prioritized) and we certainly need to reevaluate what is going on in higher education in terms of what students pay and what administrators make. Recently, an article in The Washington Post addressed this very topic by outlining the somewhat startling salaries of presidents at a few of our public universities. It is also a little odd to think that university presidents might make, based on the median total compensation, more than the President of the United States. And, even more troubling, such salaries exist in stark contrast to the statistics of student loan debt.
Because the economy is so bleak, we--and I say "we" as an educator myself--need to encourage students to continue with music in a way that will be realistic and beneficial for them. I don't agree with teachers who vaguely discourage their students without explaining the whole situation--that can be very damaging. As musicians, we all have stories of teachers who have said things along the lines of, "Oh, you'll never be a music major," etc. Nothing could be worse. There are many musicians who were not the obvious candidates for success (the child prodigies, etc.), who ended up being some of our most treasured performers and composers. Moreover, we have often said on this blog that in order to account for gender/race disparities in the composer demographic, we need to encourage our students to carry on. So, how can we encourage musicians to continue without encouraging them to gamble their futures? I think the answer might lie in a more flexible understanding of what a career path looks like. Realistically, if a student wants to continue in this field, it is important for them to understand that the practical realities of employment are undergoing a sea-change.
Recently, in one of my classes in my doctorate program, my peers and I were discussing the fact that there is this concept of the "metropolitan musician"--the musician who has multiple gigs in a metropolitan area and is able to piece together a decent living from having many different jobs. This situation is a much more likely outcome for a current doctoral student than a full-time faculty teaching job at a four-year college or university. In this class, we also talked about the importance of entrepreneurship--of being able to start your own business, studio, music ensemble, non-profit organization, etc. Other musicians have been encouraging this kind of conversation through books, blogs, articles, etc.
There will always be room for musicians in our economy and I fiercely believe that the arts are one of the most important aspects of our society. We don't have to give up this belief, however, in order to give realistic advice to our students. We need to advise our students to be flexible. We need to find ways to help prepare them for a career path that may seem more multivalent or elusive than the career paths of older generations.
Posted by Natalie
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