Yes, studying under true experts in NYC is a wonderful experience for people in film, theater, journalism, writing, the arts, etc. But there should be no expectation that a very expensive degree will lead to high-paying jobs in those fields. The fact that every year Columbia is setting up all of these new grads with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and little hope of repaying it in those professions is downright predatory.
The WSJ article that prompted the original Twitter thread is worth reading. A few graduates have managed to find low-paying, entry-level jobs in the film industry that pay under $50k per year, and probably did not require a master's degree. One of the grads they talked with is working at the local TJ Maxx ... the same job he had as a teenager.
Via one of the WSJ reporters who worked on the report:
At least 43% of the people who recently took out loans for master’s degrees at elite private universities hadn’t paid down any of their original debt or were behind on payments roughly two years after graduation.
It’s not just arts degrees. Other high debt, low-earning master’s programs: NYU publishing (debt: $116k, earnings: $42k), Northwestern speech-language pathology (debt: $148k, earnings: $60k), USC marriage and family counseling (debt: $124k, earnings: $50k).
All this is made possible by Grad Plus, the no-limit federal student loan program. Created in 2005, it’s now the fastest growing program. Based on partial data from the 2021 school year, grad students were on track to borrow as much as undergrads for the first time.