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The Indiana Daily Student

arts

Study shows arts graduates find careers in related fields

A new study found recent arts graduates are using their skills from school and internship experiences to get jobs and become involved in the community.

The report, “Making it Work: The Education and Employment of Recent Arts Graduates,” studied 88,000 arts alumni with a specific focus on 17,000 recent alumni or those who graduated from art institutions in the past five years.

The study included alumni from 140 different art institutions from 41 different states and the District of Columbia.

Eighty percent of recent alumni reported they were able to find first jobs that were closely related to their arts education, despite a higher student debt level compared to less recent alumni.

“These findings affirm that design and arts schools are providing invaluable training and that our graduates are more likely to work in related fields than many other college majors and degrees,” said Steven J. Tepper, Strategic National Arts Alumni Project research director, in a press release.

“Still, we need to do a better job of training our students not only how to make art but also how to make it as artists and workers in the world.”

Student-debt levels still put pressure on arts ?graduates.

Thirty-five percent of recent alumni reported their student debt levels had a major impact on their decisions toward careers and furthering education. Only 14 percent of less recent alumni reported it having a major impact.

The study also found arts alumni are becoming more involved in their ?communities.

Ninety percent of recent graduates supported the arts in the past 12 months by volunteering, donating or attending community arts events, according to the ?report.

“These data give us a unique and granular sense of the joys and frustrations of young alumni,” said the report’s primary author, Jennifer C. Lena of Columbia University Teachers College, in a press release. “In many ways, recent graduates in the arts may be better off than their peers. They have technical and management skills that are applicable to a wide range of work contexts; they’re entrepreneurial and adaptable and hard-working. These recent grads also give back to their own communities by volunteering for the arts.”

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