Amy Scott reporting for Marketplace looks at students pursuing a degree in the arts, racking up debt, and staring at an uncertain future.
MICA senior Erica Sadler stopped by the food truck for a quick $4 quesadilla on her way from a work-study job. She’s an interdisciplinary sculpture major, which includes performance art and installation. “This year my thesis is all about outdoor survival and outdoor living,” she says. “I’m making a hammock and I’ve made some herbal tinctures and stuff like that.”
Sadler says she’ll graduate with $120,000 in student loans. “I kind of wish someone would have, like, knocked some sense into me,” she says. “I was, like, 18 years old, thinking I had to go to college and not thinking about the financial issues and now I’m like, ‘Oh my god. Why did my parents let me go here?’”