No clickbait, no course shilling,
no wasting time. If you're wondering
if music school is worth it, the definitive answer is, maybe. What makes this question hard to answer
is that it is so dependent on you. Your background, your interests,
what you want out of your career, what you want out of life. Consider this an overall look
at music school today. I hope it'll be of use to any of you who are considering going to music school, any parents who have kids who want to go,
anybody who's in it now, and even anybody who has graduated. For context, I am myself a music major. I went to the University
of Massachusetts Lowell and got my bachelor's in sound
recording technology, their name for audio engineering. It's been seven years since I've graduated and I've been fortunate enough
to still work in the music world, though not entirely as an audio engineer. By day, I do marketing for a microphone manufacturer
and by night, I run this channel. Between those two,
I've been able to do lots of cool things, meet lots of cool people,
and even afford my own apartment. Who knows? One day, I might even buy a house. The millennial dream is within my grasp,
so long as I have hands to-- That's from The Grinch. Why am I quoting The Grinch? Let's explore a few questions that will be helpful for making
your decision. The first question
you should ask yourself is, what job in music do I want? If you want to become
a music educator in the US, it'll depend on the state, but you'll likely need
at least a bachelor's degree. If you want to be a music therapist, you'll definitely need a bachelor's
and probably a master's as well. In addition, it's very rare for someone
to get into the classical music world without intense
training of some kind, which often involves getting a degree. In those cases-- [music] If you want to become a performer,
an engineer, a business executive,
things get a little bit murkier. So much so that I'm going to need
some extra help for this one. My name is Cliff Notez. I'm an artist, an entrepreneur, and a part-time professor
at a bunch of universities, but primarily Berklee. That's not all. I am Alex Canovas. I live in Brooklyn
and I am a choral conductor. I conduct a group called
the Young New Yorkers' Chorus. I also may or may not be related
to Michael T. Snare. Are you kidding me? The second question is,
what school do I want to go to? There are many music schools in the US. Berklee College of Music,
UMass Lowell, Ithaca, NYU, Juilliard, New England Conservatory, Belmont, Full Sail, Manhattan School of Music,
USC, and all that. Each of these schools are renowned for different programs and concentrations. Even if you're looking
at the same degree at multiple schools, each one will offer
a slightly different curriculum. I went to a small liberal arts school in Massachusetts called
the Wheaton College, not to be confused with
the Wheaton in Chicago. It's super Christian. I studied psychology and music. As I studied it, I just learned cool
things about how the brain works. I think it still applies in my work,
but music was really why I was there. It was like a lot of theory,
a lot of theory, a lot of jazz theory, a lot of classical theory, and then just like the onslaught of classical musicians, the Mahlers, the Beethovens,
the Mozart's, all of that stuff. I went to Ithaca College and I graduated with a degree in vocal performance. I mainly focused on opera there,
but I also learned art song. I sang in the choirs all four years. I also worked in arts administration. It was a great experience,
especially for undergrad education, because I was able
to do so many different things. My program could roughly
be split into two halves. The first two years were spent
learning about music generally, lessons for our particular instrument, mine being voice, music theory,
music history, and a couple of gen eds. The last two years were far more focused
on the audio engineering side. I personally like this balance. I think it helps develop
a fuller understanding of music as both engineer and performer. As a disclaimer, that reflects my experience
at UMass Lowell about a decade ago. I did check their curriculum
recently and it's pretty much the same, though they do get
you into engineering right in freshman year and they added
a microeconomics class, which I think that's pretty great. This is pretty easy so far, right? Just pick a field and a school and you're good to go. Oh boy, you know what that means? It's time for America's
favorite game show. Yes, the total cost of attendance
for the upcoming 2024-2025 school year for an on-campus student
at several music schools. Let's start with my alma mater,
UMass Lowell. If you're in state, the total is $33,114. If you're out of state like I was,
it's $52,412. The tuition portions of those totals are well above the average tuition
across the US. Maybe you can chalk
that up to Massachusetts being a more expensive state to exist in. How about Belmont? You'd be paying $57,590, a slight increase
from UML's out-of-state total, but it does put you right in Nashville,
a huge music city. My brother went to Ithaca,
how much would that be? Oh, $75,000, that's a big jump. Cliff teaches at Berklee,
what's there to, oh, 78,000. Oh, ooh, oh my God. Let's do a lightning round. Juilliard, NEC, Carnegie Mellon,
Full Sail, Johns Hopkins, and Drexel. Ooh, oh, those are all in the 80K range. Oh man, I'm going to regret this. Dolores, pull up NYU's
total cost of attendance. How much does NYU cost? I want to remind you,
that's just one year. Music school is expensive. This isn't necessarily
a unique problem with music. College these days
is expensive across the board, but music schools happen
to be among the most expensive. The totals I just rattled off
put these music degrees up there in price with degrees
in law or medicine or engineering, all of which are fields
that I'd say have more job prospects for graduates
right out of the gate. There is a foundation
that it was built on, that being the music industry, that is slowly and quietly crumbling. I feel like funding for certain
things are becoming less frequent. For Harvard, you get like tons
of doctors that are making easily six, seven figures and they're giving
back their endowment, it's crazy. I'm curious to know
what our endowment is at Berklee and what it compares to other universities
and what we're able to pay for. The other side of that too is to create music on the scale of the music industry, I think it is
extremely expensive to do so. We're in a studio that I built
over four or five years that costs well over $50,000
and this is a small studio. All the money that's not being returned back to the alums and their endowment, they have to make up
for it with your tuition. Housing is a big part of that,
and NYU especially just because I'm here in New York City and housing
costs are out of control. Part of it are administrative fees. At that point,
that's when money becomes like fun points. It's like, were you born
into a family with a lot of fun points? If so, then you can pay,
then you can bring the fun points, be able to put those towards school. Were you born
in a family without a lot of fun points? Okay, then you're going to take
out all these loans and hopefully they're just federal, but if you have to go
down the private route, that's a really dark route
to go down that a lot of people have to go down and it's really messed up. It's largely
because of that high price tag when compared to the job market that many people believe music
school is not a good investment. If your only focus when choosing
a college degree is the ROI, if your only goal is to land a job that is financially
stable or even lucrative, oh my God, do not go to music school. Go into accounting or business
or engineering or law or medicine. Any field that awaits college graduates with open arms and health insurance. If you choose to do that instead of music,
that is completely valid, but I feel like focusing solely on ROI
misses the point of a music degree. If you want to study music,
that is an acknowledgement that money is not the most important thing to you. You want to do work
that is meaningful to you. That's not to say meaningful
work can't be found in accounting or law or engineering. You might not care
about those fields though. You might find
the work in them soul-sucking. You might not want to potentially
work a job you hate just so you can pay the bills and chip
away at music in the downtime. You might want a shot at making
the thing you love your livelihood. I'm sorry, I can't hate on that. I did that. Let's imagine the value of a music degree
as a pie chart. In my experience, the tactile things
you learn in music school account for a quarter of the degree's value. Even then, it's not really
the things you learn, but the context that ties
those things together. It's a meme, right? Knowing what a half-diminished
seventh chord is doesn't help me pay my bills. Sure, man, but that's true
of most knowledge and skills. It's not what you know but how you implement
it in your daily life. In the last four years of my life, I don't remember
every single thing that I did, but there are very key moments
that I've taken as learning opportunities that I want to apply
to what I'm doing moving forward. I had to transcribe
so many Miles Davis pieces. Do I remember every single
one of them by heart? No, but do I understand
what Miles Davis was trying to achieve and how he was trying to approach
music now because of that? Yes. That's more valuable for me. What's the rest of the pie? I'd say half the value of any college
education is the people you meet, both your fellow students and faculty. For music schools, I'd argue the people are more important than the coursework. A quarter of a music degree's value
is the coursework, and the other three quarters
all have to do with people. There's the network you begin to build, but there's also simply the experience of learning to work with people. This is a core belief of mine. I believe anyone can do most jobs. Yes, of course, you can't give
a guy on the street a scalpel and expect him to do surgery on a grape,
but barring some specific cases, I believe anyone can do most jobs
if they have the spirit to learn and are given the right resources. Anyone can be a gardener, a plumber,
a mechanic, an audio engineer, a performing musician,
a salesperson, a CEO, or the most sacred
of all professions, a YouTuber. what's harder to teach? Being a good hang,
being fun to be around, taking a genuine interest in the people
around you as people and not as stepping
stones in the career ladder. Knowing how to collaborate with others, knowing when to add
your input to something, and perhaps more importantly than that,
knowing when not to talk. Music schools are a great place
to learn those soft skills. They're also a great place
to make mistakes in an educational environment. Trust me, if I had made
certain mistakes that I made in freshman year in a real studio,
I would have been fired on the spot. The final piece
of the pie is the alumni network you get when you graduate. Going to a music school
is an experience that you get to share with those who came before and after you, and it can help to fast track
a relationship with someone, a shorthand code
for you can do the things that I can do. The pianist for one of my groups is, a fellow Ithaca alum
and one of my closest friends, and because we shared the same education,
I can trust his musicianship. One of my groups was invited to a conference this past
October by an Ithaca alum who was impressed by the quality of one of my group's work, but also it made
that connection much easier, and I don't know
if that would have happened if they just like came
across my choir hold. There's another path I've yet to mention. Pull up many other videos
about this topic, and you will be told that instead
of spending four years at college, you can just learn how to play
or record music by watching YouTube videos or finding
a mentor in your area. You could even pack up your life, move to a major music city
like NYC or LA or Nashville, and find anyone
who will let you work in music regardless of what you're doing
and how much you're paid. Is that a viable career path? Maybe. You can find success stories on either side of the college or no college debate. Donald Glover went
to NYU for dramatic writing, Tyler the Creator didn't go
to college at all. Charlie Puth graduated from Berklee,
which is where John Mayer went, but he dropped out after two semesters. Basically, everyone involved--
Peck went to University of Michigan, but Orville Peck got a foundational acting
degree at the London Academy, and Robin Pecknold
started his English degree at Columbia in 2013 after Fleet Foxes
took off, but he never finished it. You can also find
stories behind the scenes. Manny Marroquin got
into mixing right after high school. Serban Ghenea went
to three different universities. Lucian Grange didn't go to university. Robert Kyncl went to SUNY
New Paltz for international relations, and then got an MBA at Pepperdine. If you have the resources and connections already to get into the music business,
you might want to go for it. Maybe you're privileged enough
where you don't have to worry about making money when you start out, or maybe your uncle works at Beyonce. Take advantage
of the advantages you have in life, but I don't think it's right
to tell every single person that skipping music school
is always the better route. Sure, you could just move straight to LA or New York City or Nashville and find
that mentor, but is that really more
cost-effective than going to college, especially considering that those are some of the most
expensive cities in the US? I'm not saying that jumping
right in won't work out for you, I'm just saying that you're choosing
one risk over another. I think both sides of this debate
are victims of survivor bias. All of the people who have made
it by going to college or not going to college
are at the forefront and will tell you why their approach
worked for them, but there are far
more people who took either route and did not find
the same level of success. Maybe that's where we find
the core truth of the matter. Regardless of education, finding success
in the music world comes down to a mix of hard work,
perseverance, and luck. There are many things you can do to stack
the odds in your favor, but there will always be this unknowable, uncontrollable influence that pushes some people forward
and holds other people back. The last big question is, even if you don't achieve
your wildest dreams, even if you end up with loads of debt
and no stable income to pay them off, do you still want to pursue music? This is heady stuff
we're talking about now. How to live a valuable life. I can't answer that for you,
nor should I be able to. I'm just a guy on your screen. I'm not your dad. I'm not your endocrinologist. This is a big decision, and it's possibly the first major
decision you'll be making in life. You'll be stepping into a working society that is still relatively
new in the grand scheme of human history. 300 years ago, we had typewriters. Now, we use LinkedIn. Let that sink in. Whether you go
or don't go to music school, you'll be making a decision that impacts the next several years of your career. I don't think I can make that decision
any easier for you, but I will share
one piece that I've learned in the seven years since I've graduated. You can choose what success is to you. Here's another reality
of the working world that tends to go quiet
in these discussions. It's not uncommon
after you graduate to get into a job that is not directly
related to what you studied. A recent study found
that it's basically a 50 50 split. Again, I went to school
for audio engineering, and now I do marketing and-- but my situation is unique. I have buddies out in LA
who have worked on records by Kanye, Post Malone, Justin Bieber, Khaled. I have one buddy who works at Power Station Berklee
and who also worked on the West Side Story movie
a few years back. I know people who are out in Nashville who do studio work or live sound. I know music business people who have gone on to work at SiriusXM and Warp Records. I know one person who,
right after she graduated, went immediately to work with Wyclef Jean. The immediate success thing can happen. It's absolutely possible. I also know people who went back to school for computer science
or electrical engineering. I know one person who went
into university administration. I know dudes who fly planes now. I'm not saying
you should go to music school with the expectation
that you will not work in music, because that would be a waste. I get that if you get a piece of paper that says you're trained to do something, you should be able to do it for your job. I'm just saying that life
is long and success can actually be pretty nebulous. What you define as success
right now might not be the same in a year's time,
five years' time, ten years' time. Is music school worth it? I think there's a better way
to ask that question. Who do you think music school
is for and who do you think it's not for? I think music school is for folks with a specific plan that they know that they need music school
to be able to achieve that plan. Being able to do that or being
able to say that takes you having to think about
your own life goals and think like, hey, what exactly am I trying
to do after ten years? Which is tough. I'll meet a lot of students
that are just like, "Listen, I just want a million streams on Spotify." I'm like, "Okay,
what does that mean though? How are you going to pay your bills? How are you going to get this done?" A lot of folks will think
everything just falls into place. When you're 17, 18 years old,
thinking about going to college, it's harder to think
that farther along down the line. It's for those that have capacity. It's for those that have means. It's for those that have privilege today. There are exceptions
to that and there are people that help open up access to music degrees
to those who wouldn't otherwise have the ability to do that,
whether that be financial ability or just knowledge or the support of their family. The baseline, if we're talking about
implicit bias in the music schools, collegiate education,
the baseline is privilege. I think music school
is not for folks who are just trying to mess around and figure
out what happens. I think school is not for anybody,
music school or not, if you're just trying
to figure out what happens next, because that just to mess around should not be a $500,000 investment. You can do that a lot cheaper
and still go back to school later if you figure out that school
is the thing that you need to do. I think more and more,
the real life experience, being in the real world
is the most valuable thing. I hope this video helps you. Going to music school was definitely
a crucial part of my growth, both as a person and as
a working professional. Like with anything in life,
it helps to know as much as you can about a decision you're going
to make before you do it. Let me know
if you're considering music school, if you're in it now, if you've graduated, if you've been out
in the working world for a few years. I'd love to hear
more people's perspective on this.
