These are the fees that drove Juilliard students to revolt

These are the fees that drove Juilliard students to revolt

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norman lebrecht

June 21, 2021

Inside Higher Education has the lowdown on what it costs to attend Juilliard – aside from New York’s high living costs. Students are furious that Juilliard is increasing its fees, despite a year of virtually no face-to-face tuition.

These are the fees:

During the 2019-20 academic year, students whose families earned between $0 and $30,000 per year paid an average of $24,474 to attend, according to the National Center of Education Statistics. About one in five Juilliard students fall into this category, according to a school spokesperson. Students whose families earned between $30,001 and $48,000 paid $22,765 on average, and students whose family income was between $48,001 and $75,000 paid $34,277.

Students with families in higher income brackets have experienced the largest changes in net price over the past several years, NCES data showed. During the 2017-18 academic year, students whose families earned between $75,001 and $110,000 paid an average of $26,764 per year. That average jumped to $39,678 by 2019-20. The same is true for students with families that earned $110,001 or more. Those students paid an average of $38,696 during the 2017-18 academic year and $49,356 during the 2019-20 academic year.

Still worth it?

 

 

Comments

  • Lee says:

    I can tell you that as a student myself, I paid only $6000 in tuition fees for 2016-2018 and that is very common. The statistics are off.

    • J Barcelo says:

      The numbers reported are averages. There could be some fees significantly lower – yours – and some higher. Guess they don’t teach math at Julliard.

    • Another alum says:

      Glad your tuition was low but that does not mean the statistics are incorrect. An average usually means there are numbers above and below that number — yours was on the low side of average. According to the article, financial aid went down significantly in 2019.

      Juilliard had the opportunity to go tuition-free and the board decided on a superficial renovation instead. It’s been bleeding music talent to Rice, Yale, Colburn, and Curtis ever since.

      They created the Kovner fellowships in response, but it’s too late. It’s a good music school, but it’s no longer the flagship.

    • TubaMinimum says:

      There’s always a difference between sticker price and actual price, particularly for high end universities. But I’d disagree that the statistics are off. Juilliard’s own website estimates tuition alone is $51k for the 21-22 year.

      The data Norm’s referring to comes from information universities have to submit to the US Department of Education in order to be eligible for student loan support, which looks at what actual students had to pay (including the cost of renting a room and other fees) after scholarships, financial aid, grants. Multiple recent years of data from a quick Google seem to put Juilliards average net cost around $30k-$34k. Again, that includes room and board, which averages around $17k if you use their residences according to their website’s estimate for prospective students. So if you are saying you paid $6k per semester just for tuition for like $12k (plus books and $17k for room), then you fall pretty squarely into that average net price range. If you meant $6k tuition for the year, then I think your experience suggests you received more scholarship and aid support than average (and congrats on that by the way).

  • hsy says:

    Off topic, but the upvote/downvote buttons on this site are broken. A vote on a child post somehow also affects the votes on the parent post. And sometimes the votes are not registered at all, or registered incorrectly. Could you fix this problem?

  • Curvy Honk Glove says:

    I really don’t understand what all the ruckus is about. The Americans voted for an administration that pledged to build a utopian economy. None of this money stuff will mean anything anyway when student debt gets wiped off the books like they promised. Until then, maybe the union could chip in to offer some relief.

  • Sixtus Beckmesser says:

    Where does their tuition money actually go? Juilliard faculty are all “adjuncts”; there’s no tenure at Juilliard.

  • Monsoon says:

    “face-to-face tuition”? You mean instruction?

  • Max Raimi says:

    I went to Juilliard for a Master’s Degree more than 40 years ago, so it is very likely quite different now. But it was a decidedly mediocre educational experience. To be fair, I had private lessons with Lillian Fuchs, which were wonderful. As to the rest of it, the music theory and history courses were token at best. The “academics” were a joke. Sixten Ehrling, who was proficient but supremely uninspiring, conducted the Juilliard Orchestra. I would have been much better off just paying Lillian for private lessons.
    The only thing besides my viola lessons that I got out of it was that I realized that there were a lot of really good musicians out there, and I was going to have to work a lot harder than I thought to succeed as a violist.
    I did my undergraduate work at the University of Michigan, which took educating its musicians far more seriously. At the time, in-state tuition at Michigan ran about $500 a semester. It was one of the premiere public colleges in the United States, and still is.

    • Bill says:

      Apparently neither Michigan nor Juilliard nor your career have taught you when to use premier and premiere.

      • Max Raimi says:

        Good catch Bill! Thanks for this valuable contribution. Yeah, I knew I had made that error, but there is no “edit” function on this site. I am so glad that I brought a little happiness into your life. Way to keep your eye on the ball.

  • Petros Linardos says:

    Still worth bashing Juilliard?

  • Sue Sonata Form says:

    You see, this is the thing; if you want a prestigious organization then you have to pay prestige prices. Nothing complicated about that.

    From those stats provided it seems those on the lower income spectrum are handicapped the most. I guess you could say, though, that those on the higher incomes are paying all the tax!!

    There are always other schools and, AFAIK, trying to earn a living from the arts is going to be exponentially more difficult than raising the fees to train at Juilliard. A re-think perhaps? A mentor willing to stump up for you? (See the film “Shine”.)

    • Max Raimi says:

      “I guess you could say, though, that those on the higher incomes are paying all the tax!!”
      I guess you could say that. You could say any nonsense you want, if you don’t mind being dead wrong. By and large, income taxes are paid by wealthy people–although the wealthiest, who make money from money, manage to avoid this. Sales taxes, Social Security and Medicare taxes, and payments such as vehicle fees (here in Illinois, the privilege of owning a car will run you $200) are extraordinarily regressive. As the federal government has ceded more and more of the cost of maintaining civilization to the states (many of which have no or only token income taxes), the burden has fallen increasingly on the middle class and the poor.

  • Patrick says:

    Ya wanna go the Juilliard…. Ya pays the price.

    BUT WHY??? It just isn’t that good.

  • Gerry Feinsteen says:

    I don’t think Starbucks cares about Juilliard degrees.
    The word means a lot in Asia, but probably not for much longer. This isn’t the 1960-1980 Juilliard, it’s 2021 and being led by a dancer.
    Many students and parents and light co concertgoers will always have a soft spot for the romance of Juilliard and NYC, but consider the influential names today and we’ll find a wider range of education backgrounds.
    Consider the numerous musicians who have made great careers over the past decade and also have something special in their playing. Few went through Juilliard or even the US system.
    The biggest point of consternation about degrees is _how much did the schools actually help the students?_ If it is so difficult to enter Curtis or Juilliard, then clearly the most significant work was done pre-audition. This isn’t like Harvard or Cambridge where one settles on a major focus and then gets his/her work underway; the kids arrive at a top performing level.
    Countless times someone does not get accepted to Juilliard or Curtis, attends a school like New England or Cleveland and then for graduate degree does get accepted for Juilliard or Curtis. —so which institution (more specifically teacher-student) deserves the credit?
    Again, Starbucks probably doesn’t care too much about a degree from Juilliard.

  • Paul Capaccio says:

    I attended Juilliard in 1970 Studied with Josef Raieff and Ania dorfmann

  • Patrick says:

    So, Juilliard students are revolting. Good to know!

  • RBurke says:

    These are low tuitions. Try any major university and see.

  • JoshW says:

    These tuition fees are nothing compared to an Ivy League school. And those schools certainly don’t have sliding scales. Why is this even a story?

    • anon advocate says:

      I don’t think it’s generally understood how tuition and financial aid works in this country. Tuition price means nothing at U.S. colleges and universities. Almost nobody pays the “sticker price” because of each school’s financial aid program. And yes, aid IS given on a “sliding scale” at Ivy League and other selective schools. Kids of modest means end up paying nothing or close to nothing to attend. NOT true at Juilliard. That’s the story.

      It’s not about the quality of the school, as Juilliard offers a truly outstanding musical education, but about how it supports (or does not support) its students.

  • Audit Kaplinski says:

    Just another tax shelter. And they have a campus in Tianjin too, no conflict of interest at all, and no corruption, right? Heh heh.

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