I know this sounds like a basic question - but I’m just trying to understand the music world when it comes to colleges. I know the ballet world (our son is there) - and they award summer program and full-time program scholarships on the basis of whether or not they think you can make the ballet company money (or to bring in full-paying girls to their summer progra or full-time program) - but what is the motivation for colleges?
The things that I have come up with (but not sure if they are even viable) are:
They need a certain instrument or two to fill up their orchestra (or ensembles).
They are hoping that if they lure a talented and hardworking musician that makes it in the rather difficult world of music that will reflect well on their program and bring in more full paying students?
They appear to offer scholarships - when in fact, they “pad” the real cost of the program to the university.
For those that they offer scholarships - is it purely on the basis of the quality of their playing? What else are they looking at?
My friend’s son is a bassist. His grades were above average but not spectacular and his test scores were meh, but he’s a talented musician. He was offered merit money at schools that he would never have gotten into academically if he wasn’t a top musician. Apparently, there aren’t as many bassists as violinists so they are in demand. If you are a college music program and you have a bassist graduating, or an oboist, or whatever, you need to replace them and if you have a promising candidate who may have other choices, you can offer them money to induce them to attend your college.
I’ll take a shot- if you’re studying philosophy, or history, or mathematics, it’s nice if your classmates are engaging with the material at a similar or greater level of depth as you. You can learn from your classmates in class discussion, etc. But it’s not critical. You can still go far by engaging your mind with the material and your professor’s teaching. Some great thinkers have been almost complete autodidacts (Abraham Lincoln, for example).
In certain areas of music, particularly performance, it’s far more critical that your classmates’ skills are at least on par with your own. Your ability to engage the material deeply depends on it. So college music departments have a strong incentive to attract talent (also demonstrated dedication and work ethic) to their programs. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and music students are more chained together than other disciplines.
Also music is the public face of a university in many ways, with the band on the football field, the soloist in the opera, or the quartet pksying at the alumni event. Schools need talent in those public positions, and music schools are small relatively so they are not spending so much. I bet some music schools also have their own donors to fund scholarships dedicated to the arts.
I always like money discussions! Below is my speculation. Note I can be a cynic on the outside and constantly think that prices are simply padded but that’s too easy an answer.
I would look at music dept as a business and the degree as their product. Pricing is key feature to any product. In general a certain segment of the population will pay full price (for various reasons). Then there are a range of discount structures that the rest of people will buy at. In order for the product to be priced right you have to get people to buy at all levels for the final margins to work and keep the business afloat. So the idea that they are padding is probably not completely true bc some people are buying at full price. Like any branded product, some people will see a school name as worth the price. That brand will stick to the student. They will be in a pool of very talented musicians (and then a certain percentage like themselves who paid full freight and are probably lower). And since there is a lot of growth in undergrad…who knows…maybe the investment will work out. I believe I witnessed this with a grad student paying full freight at a top expensive school (no scholarship offered) who grew at an amazing rate and ended doing really well at the school. He also had parents with deep, deep pockets so there was no debt. However I have heard a lot more of the opposite. Kids in grad school particularly paying full or near full amt and not getting much opportunity or attn. At the more expensive, big name, schools, IMO, scholarships can correlate with how much attn you will get initially. Still there is a lot of growth over 4 years so the attn may come…but you may be able to get that growth elsewhere for a lower price.
@NYCMusicDad answered the rest of it. Music schools with scholarship dollars will offer them to promising talent (with dept need mixed in there) to build their reputation, produce talent, attract more donations for scholarships and then attract higher levels of talent so they can be a top music school. Then they can attract famous teachers and secure their reputation and more donations. Some schools simply don’t have the dollars for this arms race (think some state schools). They may have strengths in more targeted areas as opposed to all areas. They probably have some great teachers too…but the environment may not be as strong (still that can be OK for some kids they’ll grow anywhere and some schools can feel like they are on steroids). It’s like watching the cross country skiers. The US team is great. Then they have to ski against the Norwegians and obviously that’s a whole different level. Still an American may break out. She most likely skis against them in world competitions. She just doesn’t train with them. Summer programs can fill this role of testing. Sorry this is a bit of a segway!
Finally the scholarship game is different at in-state schools since their initial price is lower. So scholarships may be lower or non-existent. Still you can find some nice gems in state schools so it’s definitely worth the research. At some point the school brand name will recede and you will be judged on your own merit.
I was surprised to learn that many California public uni’s offer music scholarships. Almost all of them report the scholarships are based solely on the audition performance.
“What is the motivation for offering scholarships for high academic performance?”
My daughter is a dancer, not musician, but she’s been offered a wide variety of incentives for her academic stats (4.0UW, 35 ACT). I’d speculate that in some cases the fine arts department are being partly measured (for future funding) on academic performance at entry and/or graduation, perhaps because training professional dancers is not their only/primary goal. For other universities the academic performance of the dance department appears to be less important than talent (which is reflected in their relative scholarship offers), and they are presumably measured more by how many students go on to a professional career.
I would distinguish between need-based scholarships, which may be given because a school wants to assist students who are good enough to be admitted to the school but whose families just can’t afford it, and merit-based scholarships, which is a school’s way of trying to “buy” talent. There are some schools that limit their scholarships to the former, but for schools that give merit money, the basic goal is to attract more talented or credentialed students than they perceive they could get if they didn’t offer the merit money. This may serve a number of goals. For example , merit money for high-stats academic kids will boost the school’s stats and presumably the school’s reputation and US News ranking. (And maybe enhance academic life at the school too.) Athletic scholarships will presumably result in better teams that win more games (perhaps also with an eye to promoting alumni giving, as studies have shown a link between the two).
In the music world, it’s obviously helpful in general to have more talented musicians at a school, which enhances the school’s reputation and probably attracts more full-pay students as well. It’s certainly the case that, in any given year, a school (or summer program for that matter) may also pay to fill holes in its lineup. I remember when my son was in high school, he applied and was not admitted to a well-known summer jazz program, and then discovered later that one of his friends, a very talented jazz bass player, had been solicited by the program a few weeks before it began to join the program tuition-free, as they apparently didn’t have enough bass players.
I’m not aware of any schools or programs that offer money to everyone admitted, so I think it’s too cynical to suggest that they’re simply inflating the sticker price in order to offer everyone a “discount”. But clearly they have an idea going into the admissions process how much of a discount they can offer to how many people and still balance the budget. And also how they want to spend the money they have to offer, whether entirely based on financial need or a combination of financial need and merit.