Florida Art Institute grad spent $70K on degree, got hired, then fired, now working as a stripper

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Degreed And Jobless, For-Profit College Graduate Turns To Stripping

First Posted: 08- 6-10 08:14 AM | Updated: 08- 6-10 08:25 AM
After graduating from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, Carrianne Howard hoped to find a job in the video game industry.

She did -- kind of. For $12 an hour, she worked as a recruiter for video game companies. And then her position was eliminated. So now, she's working as a stripper.

According to Bloomberg, Howard spent $70,000 on her degree from the for-profit Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, the parent company of which is owned in part by Goldman Sachs. She told Bloomberg that upon a pre-enrollment visit to the school, a campus tour guide "made it sound like was going to make hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Howard's story is not entirely unique -- and experiences like hers are driving the government's investigation into the efficacy and recruiting practices of for-profit colleges.

This week, a Government Accountability Office report detailed how for-profit recruiters often promise potential students unobtainable jobs and high salaries, and tell them to lie to procure more federal financial aid.

At a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on the report Wednesday, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) slammed for-profit institutions, saying that the report made it "disturbingly clear that abuses in for-profit recruiting are not limited to a few rogue recruiters or even a few schools with lax oversight."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/06/degreed-and-jobless-for-p_n_673053.html?ir=Business

[Stevenmarc]

1. Well there is an art to stripping

[leftofcool]

2. And more money in it than any artist will ever make.

[ThomWV]

3. Dignity too?

[leftofcool]

4. From my point of view, yes

Maybe not from hers though. I would consider stripping/dancing an art form in and of itself in the same way I condsider ballet an art form. There is dignity in both.

[TorchTheWitch]

45. we don't make any money from stripping and dancing

Not anymore and not for quite some time.

[TorchTheWitch]

44. pfffttt... not anymore

These days were lucky to end a shift not in the negative.

[JoeyT]

47. +1

Apparently they get completely screwed over by the club owners, who are the only ones that actually make any money off it.
If strippers actually made the money people seem to think they make, no one would be a stripper for more than a month.
So in addition to being demonized by everyone, the pay sucks.

Edited to add: Because I know someone is going to say "But I saw one get a ton of money once!" or "Someone told me they get a lot of money!": Most of the places make them rent the stage they're on. And it costs as much as the owner of that stage can charge and still get people to work for him/her. Most manage to find other things to charge for as well. (DJ fees, lighting fees, whatever they can get away with.)

[lapislzi]

5. I have to weigh in on the Art Institutes

My SO works at AI Pittsburgh. Yes, their recruiters are ridiculously aggressive salespeople. Yes, it's an expensive program. Really expensive.

But I've met the students and faculty. There's some serious talent there, and they have a very high placement rate. They want you to succeed once you get out of there because, believe me, they don't want to look bad. The faculty and staff are incredibly supportive of the students.

But the pressure's on the recruiters to sell, sell, sell the program--even to kids who don't have the talent to cut it in the big leagues. Usually, those kids move on to other universities. Some may have just enough talent to skate through the program, but, things being what they are...can't score a good job after.

I think (and I have no data to back this up other than a hunch) that the Pittsburgh grads might fare somewhat better than the Ft. Lauderdale grads. Maybe I just have an anti-Florida bias, but I think many who choose Florida universities really want a spring break that lasts 9 months. G'head...flame me...

[mopinko]

8. in the end it is the portfolio that matters.

whether you go to any school at all, or go to the best.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

9. Agree 100% with that...

...I never set foot in a classroom to learn photography / Web Design / etc...it's 100% self-taught, and I built a portfolio, and the work I get is based on the strength of that portfolio. I have people react favorably to my work, and others call it crap. I don't let other extreme affect me any more than it should. I have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and continually bring in new work.

There are artists with degrees who made it through the program but lack the talent, the guts, whatever...sometimes it's a combination of factors. Many see "art" in all its forms as a glamorous profession, and while it has its incentives, it's work, just like any other job. In many ways, it's a hell of a lot tougher than the dreaded "Office Space"-style cubicle job. An artist has to have rock-solid belief in themselves and a thick skin when it comes to criticism. Sometimes people spend the money on getting the certificate and find out they'd be better off in some other field.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

41. The Art Institute chain of proprietary schools is a total ripoff.

My hubby went there to get a video and music production degree when he already had a BS and MS in Physics/Math/E.E. and already had many years experience in home video and music recording. He was the oldest student there and had more education already than any of the other students. He also graduated with perfect attendance and a straight-A average.

He knew more than the instructors did. There was a large lawsuit by former students of the Houston branch that he went to, against the Houston branch, and their misleading inferences and deceptive trade practices, implying that they could place everyone in a good job who graduated from there. There were more than 200 plaintiffs. Of course the lawyers got most of the money in the settlement. And there were no jobs out there in video production, no matter how competent he was at electronics, video editing, music editing, etc.

Now they're taking student loan payments out of his Social Security money since he started drawing it at age 62 -- I kid you not.

He was thoroughly disgusted because he really didn't learn anything from the school. All it did was waste 18 months of his life and put him in debt.

I am convinced that no degree is good for getting a job and I say that as a person with three college degrees and one of them is a Juris Doctor, which is a law degree. I never had a mentor, and life was competitive and there was always somebody else who was less qualified than I was, but they knew somebody that I didn't know, and therefore I would never get a fair chance at a job. All my life bosses have said no to me, and some bosses have deliberately lied to other people to make sure I was not hired (this was a judge telling other district judges that I was incompetent which was a lie.)

[mopinko]

6. well, that's a lot less than she would owe if she went to

the art institute of chicago. (the real art institute that they are trying to look like.) it's $30k/yr there, just tuition. i think they pile it on just as heavy at my alma mater.

[grace0418]

11. I heard that. I looked into getting my MFA at AIC but it was 28k a year at the time.

I paid for school myself, and that was so far out of the realm of possibility for me it wasn't even funny.

[mopinko]

20. i dropped out to raise a family and always thought i would

drop back in, but i just can't cough that up. at all.
i seriously don't know how they get students to go for that.
although, i have to say, it is a gold plated diploma. if you are going to do it, that is where you should do it. i am taking continuing ed classes there right now. but even that, i have no illusions.

[grace0418]

23. It is and it isn't (gold plated). Obviously a lot of amazing people

have degrees from there, but I also know far too many really pretentious, only marginally talented trust fund babies who went there because Mommy and Daddy had the cash and they didn't feel like pretending to get a job. So they went to AIC and now live in Wicker Park pretending to be poor and arty but are somehow always able to afford new (but vintage looking) clothes, cigarettes, concert tickets, music, expensive bicycles or hybrid cars, booze and drugs without any discernible income.

Sometimes I feel like the expense of going to school there keeps out a lot of really talented people and rewards rich kids with nothing better to do.

[mopinko]

29. yeah, those kids were a major factor in not going back.

they were hard enough to take when i went there the first time, at 27. putting up with them at 50??? not happening.
these days they have a pretty freaking fat endowment. i hope that is getting some of those poor kids in, but i wonder. i think most of the people that have gone there over the eons have a love/hate relationship with the place. i sure do.

[grace0418]

40. I got my MFA at Columbia College and also had a love/hate thing with that school. But I

got out of there only ("only") owing $18,000 so I can't hate it too much.

I'm finding the biggest issue to furthering my education is the youngsters. I hate to sound like an old fuddy duddy but I recently took a web development class and there were 3 girls around 20 in the class. All three spent every class, THE ENTIRE CLASS, texting on their phones and IM-ing with several different people on their computers. Then they'd slow down the whole class because they were "confused" while we did in-class assignments. Maybe if they'd paid one minute of attention...

I spoke to the instructor about it and he said it happens in every class he teaches. And that basically, since it wasn't a graded class for university credit, the school wanted him to ignore the problem. Kinda sucks for everyone else there who actually wants to learn something but I guess that's the way of the world now. The young-uns claim they can multi-task but it's complete bullshit.

I guess maybe if I went for an actual degree program they'd be better about policing that, I hope?

[mopinko]

42. columbia used to be a bargain. no more.

gotta pay for all that real estate, i guess. saic is just as guilty of that, tho.
continuing ed classes are nice. everybody is there to get their money's worth, with no big drama. people who don't like it just drop out. some classes about half of the people are working on certificates, some less than that. none of the teachers are into drama, either. certificate students are pass/fail based on attendance.
and in the end, all anybody has is that portfolio, really.

[cbdo2007]

7. all colleges do this - they tell you of all the wonderful things you can get with your degree

but it's still up to you to get good grades and go out and find the jobs after you graduate. Nothing is going to just fall in your lap because you have a degree.

[grace0418]

10. I went to art school and I never held any illusions that I would be making hundreds of thousands of

dollars. Anyone who goes to art school thinking this is just plain dumb, I'm sorry, no matter what the recruiter tells you. Even in the more lucrative art-related professions (video gaming, graphic design, etc.) it's rare that anyone makes six figures, much less multiples of that.

[surrealAmerican]

16. So did I, and I agree that she was extremely naive ...

... to think there would be some lucrative job waiting for her. Somebody, a parent or guidance counselor, should have given her a realistic picture of what the job market would be like.

Going to art school can be an enriching experience in many ways, but not economically so.

[Javaman]

12. "for profit"...

that should have been the tip off.

degree mills orchestrated to make money off the backs of ignorant students.

These types of "universities" are on par with PayDay loans.

[Blue_Tires]

38. +1000

Along with some of the technical/chef schools as well...

[tinrobot]

13. Perhaps the problem is Ft Lauderdale

There's probably a lot more stripper jobs than art/design jobs in that town.

She should move to where the real creative jobs are - New York/LA/San Francisco/etc...

[notesdev]

14. $70k for an ART degree?

Who thought she would ever be able pay off that bill with an artist's income?

[Statistical]

15. Some artists make good money in corporate America.

A graphic designer for a software company can make $40K - $60K starting depending on location & talent.

Now it isn't the "hundreds of thousands" :rofl: mentioned in the OP but it is a living wage.

[nashville_brook]

17. video game design is not exactly the same as painting unicorns...

which is apparently all you think artists do.

[notesdev]

32. Oh cool you read minds!

Might want to fix those psychic antennae though.

There are probably few if any people here who know as many artists as I do, being professionally involved with quite a few and having spent a decade in what is (or was) probably the most arts-intensive place in the country.

And if you know many artists, you know that business acumen is very very rarely found among their strong suits. Those that have it can do well, and I know of some who do, but in terms of the numbers game (which is what loans should be based on), most artistic professions will pay significantly less than other professions.

Also, video game design never paid well, not for programmers and not for artists either. Nothing "hip" or fun ever does, they don't need to pay well since there are plenty of people who will do it for the joys of the experience, or even for free.

[grace0418]

27. Well, while I think she's nuts to believe she'd be making $100k+ right out of school,

many art related fields pay pretty darn well these days. Animation, motion graphics, game design, web design, graphic design etc. pay pretty well if you're any good. And the good part about those professions? It's easy to freelance. I got laid off in Dec 2008 and have been freelancing ever since, making twice as much money as before.

This girl was clearly delusional, no doubt about that, and doesn't seem to have the chops to figure out how to make money in the field. But an artist's income can be good enough to pay off those loans as easily as any other profession could.

[Blue_Tires]

39. I'm willing to bet the 'recruiter' worked some magic during the pitch

when discussing how much money their well-connected graduates make, and how quickly she could pay it all back....

[smalll]

43. It was a dumb move on her part. Don't get a hipster degree if you don't have a hipster trustfund

to fall back on. :shrug:

[flamingdem]

18. The Art Institutes can be a rip-off, buyer beware

I met some recruiters and they admitted that some of the schools aren't all that..

I'm guessing though that these students are those who did not cut it at the better art schools? I'm not sure it's all about the recruiters ... the parents must want this too?

[snooper2]

19. The #1 thing EVERYONE should do when looking at college/upper education

Look at the GRADUATION RATES of the program you are going into, and then look at HOW MANY PEOPLE THAT GRADUATED GOT A JOB IN THAT FIELD!

If the school doesn't have that, then fuckem- they are no good...I don't know why everyone doesn't do this.

I went to a 2-year Associate Degree program at Jefferson College in Hillsboro MO.

They had a number of programs I was interested degree in, telecomunications, robotics, AC/DC theory, etc.,

I looked and they provided the graduation rates and placement after graduation. For telecomunications there like 95% of the graduates got a job in the telecom industry within 6 months of graduation. With Robotics, it was like 2 people out of 20 had a job within 6 months of graduation, and 2 more or so got a job in a "related" industry. (this was in the early 90's)

I went into telecom...and have done good ever since...Had I taken the robotics program, who knows where I would be today.

Just my take on the whole discussion....check how many people from the previous graduating classes at that institution actually got placed in the field they studied.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

21. why is this news?

[mopinko]

22. cuz they could use a pic of a half naked woman, and

call it news. silly wabbit. (meaning the original source, not amerigo.)

[L0oniX]

24. Good luck out sourcing that job.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

25. Degree choice is a choice, and I support choice

Higher education is not just about high ROI fields of study. It needs to be well rounded. That said, taking out loans that you can not reasonably repay is a bad choice.

CNN online had an article about low paying degree fields this week. Art was one of them

[Roon]

37. My little brother is a an attorney

and he got his communications degree before he went to law school. He tells me that degree has come in very handy over the years.

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Steely_Dan]

28. Brooks Institute of Photography...

I worked at a similar school in Santa Barbara/Ventura called Brooks Institute.

Brooks was at one time, one of the premier photography schools in the country. It was privately owned and operated by the Brooks family for many years.

CEC (a for profit corporation) bought Brooks Institute because the family could no longer run it. I went to work for them just after the purchase.

I have nightmare stories I could tell. However, suffice to say that Brooks quickly became a sub-standard school that was only interested in profits.

They claimed to have a 95% placement rate which was complete bullshit. I should know, I worked in the department that was responsible for finding employment for grads.

They graduated sub-par students that quickly ruined the schools reputation. They didn't give a shit about the students. I had worked in Student Affairs for 23 years at UCSB and there, students came first. All Brooks was interested in was the bottom line.

The recruiting was brutal. In one case, I heard a recruiter on the phone with a potential student say..."Well, just go into your mom's purse and get the credit card." It was just amazing.

Here's how the scam works. CEC relies heavily on students getting financial aid. Once they "qualify" a student and get their money from the government, then they don't give a shit. They got what they wanted...they've been paid. Of course, the student is on the hook for a very long time after they graduate. It's a complete scam.

I tried to start a student government there in order to give them a voice. I was told that it would happen sometime in the future. I got this response each and every month that I pursued the project. Finally, I threatened to leave if they didn't start giving the students the support they needed. They didn't care. In fact, I'm sure that they were happy to get rid of me. Yep...I resigned.

I heard that CEC was under investigation...not sure what the results were.

-PLA

[Starry Messenger]

30. Those "Art Institute" schools are a chain

There are a lot of stories on the web about their bad practices. They are in the business to sell student loans, basically. Although the girl is the hook for the story, there are interesting details getting buried here. From another link:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_33/b4191066612953.htm?campaign_id=rss_topStories

Like many investors, Goldman, owner of 38 percent of the Art Institute's parent, Education Management Corp. (EDMC), was drawn to for-profit colleges by their rapid growth and soaring stock prices. Now Goldman, which recently agreed to pay $550 million to settle U.S. civil-fraud charges related to the subprime mortgage meltdown, is invested in an industry under attack from Congress, the Obama Administration, and dissatisfied students. This week the Senate held a hearing featuring a Government Accountability Office undercover probe that found recruiters at EDMC's Argosy University in Chicago and 14 other for-profit colleges misled investigators posing as potential students about the cost and quality of their programs. Near their peak in April, Goldman's shares in EDMC were worth $1.39 billion. Since then they've fallen by 42 percent, to about $800 million.

A proposed government crackdown could have a disproportionate effect on EDMC. The U.S. Education Dept. could restrict taxpayer-funded grants and loans to for-profit colleges like EDMC that offer $50,000 associate's and $100,000 bachelor's degrees in such low-paying fields as cooking, art, and design.

Until recently the education business looked like a bonanza for Goldman. Pittsburgh-based EDMC, the second-largest U.S. chain of for-profit colleges after Apollo Group's (APOL) University of Phoenix, has 136,000 students—more than three times as many as the University of Michigan. Its annual revenue doubled over the last five years, to $2.4 billion. Goldman and two other firms bought EDMC in 2006 and took it public in 2009. Along the way they shared at least $70 million in advisory, management, and other fees, according to securities filings. Goldman also became EDMC's biggest stockholder.

Government grants and loans to students, combined with booming enrollment, have made for-profit colleges a rewarding investment. Federal aid to for-profit colleges jumped to $26.5 billion in 2009 from $4.6 billion in 2000, according to the Education Dept. EDMC currently receives almost 82 percent of its revenue from federal financial aid programs.

I will be totally thrilled with the Administration if they crack down on these practices. These "art schools" have lower accreditation and often their credits are not transferable to any other college. Employers are usually savvy to these diploma mills and will often steer clear of resumes that list these schools on them. Then the student is left with crippling loan payments. Art is not going to make you a millionaire, no, but your degree should be worth the paper it is printed on and what you paid for it.

[Hannah Bell]

33. +100.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

31. Is this story supposed to mean something?

Person gets worthless degree from a worthless school.

Okay... these schools are obvious scams. That's well known.

Person works as a stripper.

So fucking what?

What the fuck is that supposed to add to the story?

Why not do a story about someone scammed by these schools who is not even physically attractive and is working at McDonald's.

It would be a more heart-rending tale.

But it wouldn't have "stripper" in the headline.

[Xithras]

34. A large part of the fault DOES lie with students.

This was discussed in another thread recently, but I see my students doing this ALL THE TIME. They pick a major that they think will "make them money" without having any real ideas about the type of jobs they are really interested in doing. I've talked to newly minted college graduates who, if asked "What would you like to do now", simply respond with an "I dunno."

They way it SHOULD work, the way it USED to work, was that you decided what you wanted to do with your life and THEN picked the degree that would help to get you there. Nowadays, kids walk into college and say things like, "I want to pursue a finance degree, because someone told me that finance jobs pay a lot." There is no real investigation into the field they're choosing, no investigation into the availability of jobs in their chosen field and, in many cases, no real interest in it either.

IMHO, as a college professor who has spent eight years dealing with both the best and brightest, and the worst and dullest, NO YOUNG ADULT should EVER register for a SINGLE college course until they know what it is they want to do with their lives.

If you graduate high school and still don't know what you want to do, take a year off and figure it out. Move out of your parents house. Move to a different town. For a year. Get out of your comfort zone and figure out what is really important to you. After you figure out what it is you want to do with your life, and make sure there are actually JOBS in that sector, picking the right major will be easy.

[JoeyT]

46. That's the result of seeing an absurd amount of people with degrees

barely managing to make ends meet. What's the point of incurring a crushing debt if you're not going to even be able to pay it off after you graduate?

"Boy, I sure am glad I got an <insert random low paid discipline> degree. I love my job. I just wish I didn't owe a hundred grand that I won't be able to pay off until I'm 70."

[raouldukelives]

35. Beats working for the Art Institute

At least stripping has some dignity and your existence isn't based on lying to people to get a few dollars for yourself now while you deny them years of happiness in the future.

[lunamagica]

36. I dreamed for years about going to the Art Institute of FL....

And studying Graphic Design, and later, Web Design.

I even went to that pre-enrollment visit. Everything sounded like a dream.....so many promises....

Luckily I didn't qualify for financial aid (though I didn't feel lucky at the time. I was quite depressed for a while about not being able to go).

You can get a Graphic Design or Web design degree at Miami-Dade Community College for tens of thousands of dollars less. I'm sure the degree is much more valuable from MDCC than that of TAIOFL. You can transfer your credit from MDCC to any university, while at orientation at the Art institute they told us that the credits couldn't be transfered anywhere.

Sadly I wasn't able to go to MDCC either and never got my degree.....

[tilsammans]

48. Buyer beware for anyone going to ANY art school now!!!

Commercial design work is now outsourced to India and other countries, just like so many other jobs. :cry: A fellow art school classmate of mine owns an ad agency, and he can get a logo designed in India for just $150. The design work coming out of India is very good, he says.