NYC art schools see record-high application numbers as Gen Zers clamber to enroll

Fine arts programs in New York City are receiving record-high applications even though many have hefty tuition costs and creative careers are notoriously hard to attain.

The surge comes as many young adults grapple with fears about the impacts of artificial intelligence, a sense of internet overload and a desire to reconnect with the physical world.

Pratt Institute, which has an annual tuition of around $62,000, has a waiting list for its painting and drawing programs, which both enrolled their largest classes in recent history this past fall. The School of Visual Arts also reported an increase in fine arts major applications. And at Parsons School of Design, applications to arts programs have risen 64% since 2016.

The trend is not limited to private schools. Hunter College, the Fashion Institute of Technology and LaGuardia Community College — all public schools where in-state tuition is less than $10,000 annually — reported increases in fine arts applicants.

Education experts said it’s particularly surprising to see an uptick in arts programs, since uncertain economic times are typically correlated with more students choosing pre-professional tracks, like law or medicine, that are perceived to be safer investments. But at a time when AI threatens many workers’ job security, the arts may have a leg up on more traditional career tracks because they can offer a comforting, human sense of purpose.

“There are ways to make a life that is still rooted in creative work,” Dahlia Elsayed, director of LaGuardia’s fine arts program, said. “They’re all still making art but they’re also making money. Having a creative life exists beyond a studio practice.”

Elsayed said recent graduates have opened art supply stores and work as tattoo artists or high-school art teachers.

Nationwide, the class of 2025 is the largest graduating high-school class in U.S. history, driving enrollment numbers up in part due to sheer quantity of students. But experts say more young people are turning to art school for reasons beyond that.

“Especially when the world is so unstable and insecure, I think that art is a place of reflection, resistance and imagination,” Pratt Institute Fine Arts Chair Jane South said. “It’s not something that just reflects the world. It really helps us to make sense of it.”

‘A lot of young people understand that nothing is guaranteed’

The trend follows roughly a decade of steady enrollment decline in the arts that many assumed would continue, according to Troy Richards, dean of FIT’s School of Art and Design and an executive committee member at the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, which accredits art schools and programs.

Sara Greenberger Rafferty, Hunter College’s inaugural Ruth Stanton Chair of the Department of Art and Art History, said some Gen Zers are gravitating toward art education because they lacked it in high school.

Today’s high-school students aren’t “having shop class, they’re not learning how to make ceramics,” Greenberger said. “So they can come and do that in college.”

The spike in fine arts studies coincides with more young people moving toward vocational schools, where they learn labor-based trades that are comparatively protected from AI’s effects and involve working with one’s hands.

“ I teach painting, and they’re very interested in the material,” Pratt faculty member Adrienne Elise Tarver said, citing students’ desire for tactile experiences.

Manar Balh, a 25-year-old painting student at Pratt, said more young people are prioritizing their passion for the arts amid deep corporate pessimism.

“A lot of my peers understand that nothing is guaranteed really, no matter what you study, so you should just study the thing that matters the most to you,” Balh said. “AI doesn’t feel like a reason to stop making art. If anything, it’s a reason to keep making and insist on making art.”

While most Gen Zers say the purpose of college is to prepare students for specific careers, about 43% say it’s to prepare students for life in general, according to a 2018 report by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Only a small percentage of graduates go into the arts: During the 2021-22 school year, visual and performing arts degrees composed 4.4%, or just over 90,000, of the 2 million bachelor’s degrees conferred in the U.S., making it the nation’s eight most popular major. Business ranked first, followed by health, social sciences and history.

Sasha Chada, CEO of New York City-based college consultancy Ivy Scholars, said the overall increase in high-school graduates was also driving fine arts enrollment. For students who don’t see themselves as competitive in engineering or computer science programs, he said, art school may offer an edge.

“They’ve got something they’re good at, a kind of walled garden that’s very difficult for other students to penetrate, and they think, ‘Oh, if I’ve got a strategic advantage here, I might as well double down on it,” Chada said. “‘My parents are willing to support me, I’ve got the experience, I am less likely to succeed in other domains. Let me play to my strengths.'”

Others interviewed by Gothamist said more young people were studying art because they are dissatisfied with the current state of society.

“I don’t think young people today buy the myth of capitalism,” Elsayed said. “They are seeing a doom-and-gloom world presented to them and [think], ‘Why not go and create a life that is meaningful, where you have community and a real sense of doing something constructive and creative and positive in the face of all this?'”