You do * not * need to go to college to work in the film industry, period. A truly hands-on, production oriented program can be helpful for technical divisions like cinematography, audio mixing, or editing. But for something like screenwriting, a USC education is a waste unless you have plenty of disposable income. Most film school educations are a waste if they put you into significant debt. Pursuing an artistic career is already hard enough, but doing it with the added stress of debt really sucks. You need a few years to live cheaply while you establish yourself.
Let’s say you graduate from somewhere like USC. What do you have - a piece of paper that says you graduated from the renowned USC film program. Now what? You don’t go off and apply for “a job” as you would with another career like law, medicine, teaching, etc. You don’t get a job based on the simple fact that you have a degree, as you might if you majored in engineering or computer science (that’s because film takes more than technical know-how: it takes talent and creativity). The only way you can emulate a semi-stable job is if you get involved with entertainment law, or marketing, or any other behind the scenes work at an established studio. But most people don’t go to film school for those jobs - they go to film school because they want to be on the creative end of things, directing films and writing scripts.
If this is who you want to be, pursuing a career in film is not stable. You shouldn’t be asking “can I get a job in the film industry?”. You should be asking “can I get a job in the film industry… and then another one three weeks from now… and then another one the following month” and so on so forth. With filmmaking and screenwriting, you don’t go to an office 9 to 5. All the work you get is on a project by project basis. When work on one film is done, you have to move on to the next opportunity, so you’ll always be searching for new work every few weeks or months. Unless you’re an incredibly famous, well-established director or writer (and even then), people don’t come to you and offer you jobs. You have to make your own opportunities. It’s an endless search, endlessly asking for things, looking for jobs, raising money, contacting agents, managers, and producers. It’s all on you.
Your degree really isn’t going to make a huge difference when it comes to finding work. In a market saturated with so many young, enthusiastic people working to break in (a lot like acting), you need to actually prove your worth. If you want to be a screenwriter, what you need is a really, really good script, preferably a portfolio of good scripts. No one is going to believe you’re a good writer unless you show them you are, regardless of a USC or NYU degree. There are loads of prestigious film school grads who write average material, and then you have people who write on napkins in subways and never went to college who write something incredible (Quentin Tarantino dropped out of high school, for example). Similarly, if you want to be a filmmaker you need a decent reel of short films you’ve made. If you want to learn the technical ropes and you live in or near a big enough city, you can look for job as a PA. You * don’t * need an expensive degree to be a PA. In fact, I think I read somewhere that some people actually prefer to hire very young, inexperienced PA’s, because they’re more humble than prestigious film school graduates (and are more likely to work for free).
At this point you might say “but don’t I have to go to film school to make short films?” and the answer is no. Is it easier? Sure it is, when you’re surrounded by people the same age as you who are all equally passionate about the same subject. It’s probably really fun too. But in your case, it isn’t worth the tuition. Think about it - for the 30k tuition you’d be paying to attend some of these schools and borrow their equipment, you could * buy * your very own equipment and finance a low-budget feature film. There are still ways to meet people with similar interests outside of college - see if there are local film groups or theater companies near you. Maybe even enroll in one or two film classes at a community college, or do limited enrollment and pay for a few film classes at a better college without actually enrolling. You can go to college and get an employable major and minor in film; that’s a great way to utilize the schools film resources without putting all of your eggs in one basket. You can join a film club on campus in your free time. You can even double major in film and something else more practical, if that doesn’t sound like too much work. There are so many options. I’m not saying you shouldn’t go to college at all. I’m just saying it’s not the best idea to go to college solely for film if it’s going to put you in debt.
I know you might be thinking that the only way to learn filmmaking and become good at it is if you put your trust into the hands of some college, but that’s not really true. You can put your trust and your future in your own hands. So many people learn filmmaking by buying a DSLR and some basic equipment, and then going out and learning by doing, through trial and error. Film equipment is very, very cheap nowadays. Gone are the days when you had to go to film school because actual film was the only available format, everything was heavy and expensive to work with, and there was no such thing as the internet or social media. There are loads of books on filmmaking and screenwriting out there. There are online forums devoted to aspiring filmmakers and screenwriters. There are tons of YouTube channels that offer tutorials for people interested in film. The information is out there - it isn’t locked in some magical box at a place like USC. You just have to dig around a bit.
Those are my two cents, but you can take it with a grain of salt. Good luck!
