Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and Academy of Art University President Elisa Stephens at the school's annual fashion show in May 2015.
Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown (Slick Willy) and Academy of Art University President Elisa Stephens at the school’s annual fashion show in May 2015.

Katia Savchuk of Forbes magazine recently published an expose on the San Francisco Art Academy. All I have to say is…thank you Katia, it’s about damn time that someone spells out the truth. The San Francisco Art Academy is the largest private college in the United States, over 18,000 students. What helps fuel their size is that they promise that anyone can be an artist because you don’t actually have to show a portfolio to be admitted into the San Francisco Art Academy. Although the San Francisco Art Academy’s annual tuition is steep at $23,000 a year, plus there’s the cost of living in San Francisco, the most expensive city in the nation, their tuition is about half of the top 42 art and design schools in North America.

So if you don’t have the talent to get into an established art school or can’t afford it, you can always go to San Francisco Art Academy.

The liberal “no talent required” clause sets up a lot of unsuspecting and hopeful art students, and their supportive parents, for very disappointing failure. It’s a bit like American Idol, one or two artists in the open call might actually have talent. It could happen. The San Francisco Art Academy’s top market share is also helped along by the fact that they market well to foreign students. The problem with this admission free policy is that it contributes to the San Francisco Art Academy’s paltry graduation rate of around 32%. Frankly, I think that’s optimistic. I suppose that would be just fine if you could actually make a decent living after graduating from art school. But as we all know, art school is not the place to develop skill and knowledge that’s currently marketable. It just isn’t. Now no one, including myself, can guarantee artists that they will make a living from their art. However, I have a big problem with selling false hope. And this is exactly why I advertise a clear earnings disclaimer and “13 reasons why you should not apply to The MAKING Art Making MONEY Semester.” How is the San Francisco Art Academy selling false hope? They are selling the dream of a promising career as an artist. They use the phrase “careeras an artist.”

That’s the first big damn red flag.

According to the United States Bureau of Labor and statistics, only 3300 fine artist where employed in the United States in 2014. So there are no jobs for fine artists. If there are no jobs for fine artists, then there are no careers for them. Now I’m not talking about designers but they too have to brand and market themselves to succeed and they will not learn marketing and sales in art school. Bottom line is this. If you want to make art and make money with it then pursuing an art career is a dead end road. Successful artists run businesses and that is not something that the San Francisco Art Academy, nor any art school, is prepared to teach art students how to do. How do we know? Because art schools have career offices and because academics are just not wired to teach entrepreneurship. They don’t teach business because they can’t. Whether you attend the San Francisco Art Academy, or any other art school or art program, they may be able to teach you to make art but that is very subjective and it will largely depend on your innate talent. Talent, is a critical success factor yet the San Francisco Art Academy omits it from their admission process. The problem is when over 18,000 young unsuspecting students and their parents swallow this false hope they can unwittingly enter into student loan debt that they will never escape.

The other issue is that our tax dollars finance San Francisco Art Academy’s ill gotten gains.

How? Because the tuition revenues are backed in large part by the U.S. government via guaranteed federal student loans. Yes. Your tax dollars are at work. This revenue, and the student housing rental income, makes First Republic Bank more than happy to extend mortgage loans to the San Francisco Art Academy. BTW my former intern from the Art Academy paid $1,000 a month several years back to be crammed into a room with four or five other students. That was the lowest rate back then. It has to be much higher now. And this is why the San Francisco Art Academy can boast such an impressive portfolio of 40, and counting, prime San Francisco properties. Interestingly, they yanked down their red logo signs from the face of their many properties after some heat in the press over about their code violations amidst the affordable housing crisis here in San Francisco. Let’s not forget to mention their other assets, an incredible antique art collection. One car currently on display is worth over $8 million. Year after year the San Francisco Art Academy is in blatant violation of San Francisco building code law and they continue to rack up unpaid fines like no other property owner. Seems that they get to play by different rules, it’s not like they don’t have the money to pay the fines or to correct their code violations. Yet not even half of their students, who they are indebted to, will ever graduate. Too many of the San Francisco Art Academy students will be forever working off their student loan debt as baristas or Uber drivers. I don’t begrudge the San Francisco Art Academy, or any business, earning a fair profit. But selling false hope is not earning a fair profit it is takinga profit at the expense of U.S. taxpayers, the citizens of San Francisco, and a record population of unsuspecting students and their hard working parents. That’s not fair. It’s abundantly clear that the first priority of the San Francisco Art Academy is not to teach promising artists how to make a good living. Let’s call a spade a spade. The San Francisco Art Academy’s first priority is to employ an ingenious real estate play that fuels a small private family trust bought and paid for with futures that belong to young artists their parents. Did you attend this school? What was your experience? Are you earning a good living now?  

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