MFAs

I got another comment from Foxessa, which is worth reading. (See below. The comment on the most recent MFAs post.) I think the conclusion is, I don't know what I'm talking about re the merits of getting an MFA; and I suffer from prejudice in this area.

Which is useful to know.

Foxessa talks about people who go into the academic world fairly late, with experiences already acquired and work already done. I've known people like this. The two that come immediately to mind for me are Harley Shaiken and Marty Glaberman. When I knew Harley, he was a steel worker. When I knew Marty, he was an unemployed auto worker. Harley became a Professor of Social and Cultural Studies, having only a BA in economics from Wayne State University (a very good blue collar school in Detroit). Marty ended as a professor at Wayne State, I think in Labor History. If I remember correctly, Marty went back to school and got a PhD.

These were people who brought considerable life experience to the academic world.

Foxessa would have to write about how difficult it is to make this transition today. Harley and Marty made it in the aftermath of the 1960s.

I am probably justifying my own life. I quit graduate school to find out what the rest of the world was like, and I never went back. When I have tried teaching writing, I have been uncomfortable and bad. So that route was never really open to me. Instead, I ended up making a living doing accounting, which I like and am fairly good at.

At this point in my life, in my late 60s in a godawful economy that does not look to get better, I advise people to think about money and retirement. I lucked out in a lot of ways. It was easy to find jobs and make a living in the 1960s. I sailed through the 70s, 80s and 90s, always getting by.

Then I hit a wall in the current century. I'm still lucky. I hit the wall when I was old enough to retire, and I ended -- through no planning of my own -- with enough to retire on.

So maybe one has to do a cost-benefit evaluation. Is an MFA worth enough to justify going into debt?

Maybe, looking down the road, it is. But watch out for those programs that end you owing $100,000.