Art + Business Colleges?? Please Help!

Hi! I’m trying to help my friend compile a list of college to apply to. She is taking a gap year and graduated 2018. Her plan was always to apply to art colleges only as she wants to be an artist. However, her parents are not letting her do that because they want her to get a “well rounded” college education.

About Her:

  • Didn’t do well senior year because of family problems
  • Has ADHD, dyslexia which has effected her grades
  • Very focused on her art and extracurriculars
    -AMAZING art portfolio, lots of experience, very talented
  • 3.0 GPA, all IB classes, 26 ACT
  • White/Japanese
  • Born and raised in Hawaii

Wants in a college:

  • STRONG art program
  • Ability to major or minor in business
  • Fashion classes
  • Lots of financial aid (she can afford about 10,000 a year)
  • West/East Coast in a major city with acting/modeling opportunities like NYC or LA or Vancouver
  • Liberal and not too big of a college because she does better in small classes

Basically if anyone has any recommendations for safeties/matches/reaches please let me know I want to help her get into a college she loves and can afford!
Thank you!

Has she considered community college first? Affordable and will allow for smaller classes and the ability to dabble in subjects that she doesn’t have a passion for while continuing to get better as an artist. She could get an associate degree in business and quickly move on to art school.

Most private universities will be hard to gauge affordability due to not knowing parents income and not knowing the state she resides in currently limits public universities in terms of cost.

@Artful4art I think she would then be in college for 6 years, associate + bachelors, which is pretty unaffordable for her family. She would love to find a school where she can do both art and business. She lives in Hawaii but wants to go out of state and therefore probably go to a private school that will offer her more financial aid or possibly an art scholarship. Any suggestions for schools would be great!

Without knowing her expected family contribution it would be pointless to guess. The cost of living on either coast would be expensive in addition to school. Community college is all she needs for parents to be satisfied with a pursuit outside of art. Also she doesn’t need to graduate with an art degree to be successful in the art world. She needs to make connections and learn some more advanced skills. No one asks for a degree when making a hiring decision only a portfolio. If you look at the graduation rates for most art schools you will notice a pattern. If you have the talent there’s little a school can provide for four years to make you succeed.

Why would she be in college for 6 years? She does her associates at a community college taking the required GE’s and pre-req courses for the first 2 year then transfers to a 4 year and complete her bachelors. Her stats are not going to get her merit aid so posters need to know what her parents can pay towards her college costs and what need-based aid she may be eligible.

I wrote that she can afford 10,000 dollars a year, I meant that’s how much her parents can realistically afford, maybe a little more. And yes @Artful4art I agree she doesn’t need an art degree but she would like to have the college experience and make connections. And @Gumbymom the other poster was suggesting then going to an art college which doesn’t have GE requirements and will take four years to complete. She would love to go to an art college and I’m looking for ones which also offer non-art courses such as Parsons. I know she would not be happy attending a community college and she really wants to leave the state.

She will also get a job in college so 10,000 + a couple thousand a year from her working. I’m mostly looking for suggestions for art colleges that offer non-art courses and colleges with strong art programs that offer good financial aid. Thank you!

Look into fashion institute of technology in nyc. They tend to have decent aid, don’t know if they have a business degree.

Thank you! I did and it seems awesome for her

10,000 + may not be enough for living expense alone in NYC or other cities. Community college or State University may be better option. With her stats, almost impossible to get into Ivy level college which offer full need-based aid.

Your friend needs to post so we aren’t going third party. We don’t bite!
I would ask all the usuals first.
Has she attended a National Portfolio Day? You say her portfolio is amazing. Is that just your opinion? Or does she have back up from art teachers or other professionals?
What does she imagine herself doing as a career?
Why a fashion focus? Why business?
Sometimes it’s hard to tell how much a college will give in scholarship money. It depends so much on talent. So even some schools that are incredibly expensive on paper may be affordable. Don’t count on it but it is possible.

FIT is very highly respected and in addition to the ‘arts’ part of their curriculum offers a lot of classes in the business side of things. We toured it along with several other NYC based art programs (Pratt, SVA, Parsons) & I was impressed with the studios (it’s a state school but they don’t really look any different from every other art school), campus (all on one city block right in the heart of NYC), work we saw displayed and the info presentation.

FIT is the hidden gem. I agree. It’s got marketing programs in addition to design programs. It offers internships in various industries in the fashion world. It also offers harder to find things like toy design. Because it’s a SUNY it’s also remarkably cheap – at least if you’re in-state. It’s located in the heart of Manhattan central to many of the industries that may hire her. But! She’s not in-state SUNY and it might be very expensive for her.

One other approach is for her to look at a liberal arts college that also offers an excellent fine arts program. Some might be niche programs. She may want to consider –

-Alfred (not the public Alfred but the private one) – the best ceramics program in the country – in Upstate New York. It also has one of the few ceramics engineering programs. And business programs. The school also has the only glass engineering programs.

  • Centre – has one of the only fine-arts glass programs in the country
  • Juniata – has studio arts and business courses–strong program
  • CUNYs – in the city of NY the city university system, there are many art programs and business programs. She might want to look at those. Compared with other colleges, the CUNY system is fairly cheap. It also allows access to internship opportunities. http://www2.cuny.edu/about/colleges-schools/
    -University of Delaware – design program – it’s quite good but I’m not sure how cheap it is https://www.art.udel.edu/
    -Similarly the Cincinnati design program is excellent – https://daap.uc.edu/academics/design.html not sure how cheap it is

Design in general might be a good middle ground with her parents. She may want to look at packaging design programs (such as at UW Stout) because 1) good jobs placement 2) a good way to use one’s artistic talents professionally; 3) packaging reform is a good step towards fixing the environment.
https://www.valuecolleges.com/rankings/best-packaging-programs/ .

The problem with most art schools is that they can be extremely expensive and offer very little FA and then beginning artists tend to not make much money. It seems like the better approach is from the LAC angle. Also FIT and CUNYs seem relatively less expensive.

As others have pointed out, your degree doesn’t matter. It’s what you can produce – your portfolio. Also the advice to get other skills, such as business, is helpful for getting a job afterwards. I fully agree.

Loyola Marymount University (LMU) in Los Angeles could be a great fit. As it is a liberal arts school there can be much crossing between disciplines.

Art Department: https://cfa.lmu.edu

Business Program: https://cba.lmu.edu

There could be a possible major in art and minor in business or vice versa.

Look into it, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.