Is art as important as math, science, or history? Should it be a priority for schools, universities, and communities? Every year, new classes of undergraduates and graduates enroll in programs such as the ones offered at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, trusting that a life in the arts is worth pursuing.
Like many students, Kelly Wang (BFA 2023) chose to study at SAIC despite not knowing the financial risks.
“I knew I wanted to have a career in comics, even if I couldn’t totally financially rely on it. I wanted to be able to study and hone my craft as an artist and be in an environment with like-minded people,” said Wang.
Employability is a major concern for students. It’s common for instructors and working professionals to tell you that a BFA or an MFA does not guarantee you a job when you graduate.
Despite a historically low unemployment rate, Americans are facing a slow hiring pace, splitting the economy into those with secure jobs and those who are struggling with jobs that feel untenable. In September, nearly 2 million people seeking employment had been unemployed for more than 27 weeks.
According to the Life After SAIC website, 92% of SAIC graduates from 2022 are employed or continuing their education. Nationwide, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that only 52% of fine and performing arts degree holders are employed in occupations requiring at least a bachelor’s degree, and 22% are employed part-time.
“I was lucky that I already had an internship with Ogilvy lined up for my first summer post-grad, and even luckier that they decided to extend an offer after my 10-week internship was up. I often refer to it as my summer of begging and groveling. Even as somebody with a job, I have to worry about the potential about being laid off,” said Hali Kleinfeld (BFA 2024). Kleinfeld said they had friends who have been searching for over a year for jobs, both in the arts and in other fields.
Underemployment is increasingly common for young people. Those who are underemployed either have part-time jobs or are in full-time jobs that don’t meet their economic needs.
Wang was able to get a job after graduating from SAIC, but now finds themselves struggling with underemployment.
“It feels quite bleak and difficult; there really isn’t anything good out there, especially art-wise. Even when you do find something, it often isn’t enough hours, and you’re required to have multiple jobs. Opportunities that I have known are all disappearing one after another. It’s also hard to reach out to your network when everyone you know is struggling,” said Wang.
Sorin Sukumaran (BFA 2023) has worked with the same company for the last four years and feels grateful for their position. However, because their hours are limited and their employer has been affected by tariffs, they only work one day a week there and can’t make ends meet with that job.
As Sukumaran searches for part-time retail or customer service employment to supplement their income, they’ve been reflecting on when they looked for similar jobs in high school.
“In 2017, when I got my first job, I had no experience. I was applying, again, to these same kinds of exact jobs that I’m applying to now. I was still getting a lot more response to my applications than I am now,” said Sukumaran.
In high school, Sukumaran applied to 10 positions and received five responses. Now, they’ve applied to over 30 and have only heard back from two. Sukumaran said, “It’s hard to not take it personally. I have a degree, I’m educated, I have tons of skills that I’ve built up over the years, and yet I’m getting less, less, and less response from these employers.”
While artists try to find job security, institutions all over the country are feeling the impact of Trump administration policies targeting the arts and humanities. Following Trump’s “Reforming Accreditation To Strengthen Higher Education” executive order, post-graduation employment for Bachelor’s and Master’s students may soon be under more scrutiny.
“This whole thing is a ludicrous losing battle. People who are getting BFAs and MFAs are not making more money than people who just have a GED, especially in this economy. With how the economy is being tanked and how the arts are being targeted, it is nearly impossible for someone with a BFA to be making that amount of money,” said Teddie Bernard (BFA 2023), who temporarily worked at SAIC as an alumnus.
Additionally, under Trump’s administration, hundreds of arts organizations had their grants from the National Endowment for the Arts withdrawn and terminated in May 2025.
However, some organizations have been successful in recouping their 2025 fiscal year National Endowment for the Arts funding that the government cancelled through appeals and submitting receipts for costs already incurred.
In their 2026 Discretionary Budget Request, the Trump administration also proposed eliminating the federal funding for the NEA, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, as part of the president’s “efforts to decrease the size of the Federal Government to enhance accountability, reduce waste, and reduce unnecessary governmental entities.”
In Illinois, the NEA has distributed more than $31 million in federal funding over the last five years. In the last year, the NEA added $37.4 billion to the state economy from arts and cultural production.
Despite the fact that the majority of Americans, by far, want funding for and think positively of museums and libraries, museums are struggling to contend with inflation rates, loss of grant funding, and low attendance. Close to half of the museums in the U.S. still have not recovered their attendance rates since the pandemic.
At SAIC this semester, money, budgets, and funding have been on people’s minds. From the loss of overnight access to full-time staff layoffs, the SAIC community is reckoning with the repercussions of a $7.7 million gap in the yearly budget. One hundred and eighty one submissions from nearly 100 faculty and staff members were sent to the administration with creative ways to generate revenue.
A significant factor in SAIC’s budget deficit is student enrollment, and especially international student enrollment. More than a third of SAIC’s student body is made up of international students. But international students are becoming less likely to come to the U.S., in large part because of recent actions taken by the Trump administration. According to the Institute of International Education’s data, first-year international student enrollment is down 17% in the U.S.
As budgets at SAIC and across the country shrink, the community is left wondering what artists need to thrive. F News asked SAIC professors how they’d spend a hypothetical million dollars that had to be put directly towards the arts. Many wanted the funding to give artists livable wages and working conditions.
“If you want people to be able to have full access to all that art can be and all the forms it can be manifested through, you need to work on making sure there’s a chance for all the voices to come to the table,” said Associate Professor Adjunct Andrew Scarpelli, who teaches in the science and Art and Technology/Sound Practices departments.
Healthcare is another major concern. Kirin Wachter-Grene, a liberal arts associate professor, stressed the importance of healthcare, particularly for SAIC lecturers.
“Give the lecturers healthcare. If we support our faculty in substantive material ways, they’re going to be able to show up for our students who are the artists. That’s how we should fund the arts,” said Wachter-Grene.
“What is necessary are huge, structural policy changes: universal healthcare, universal childcare, a universal basic income — which was just approved for artists in Ireland! Put money towards organizations who support and lobby for these urgently necessary basic necessities,” said Marine Galloway, a cartoonist and lecturer in the Painting and Drawing department.
Galloway went on to imagine ways of creating community spaces if those basic needs were met. She said that if she were given funding to go towards the arts, she would create an organization similar to Creatives Rebuild New York, which provides income for 2,400 artists in New York City.
“[I’d want to] provide basic income for cartoonists in Chicago. Chicago is such an important city in the history of comics, and a basic income would provide the many emerging and established artists working here the ability to focus more of their time and energy into their art practice,” said Galloway.
Similar to Galloway, Stacia Yeapanis, an associate professor adjunct in Fibers and Material Studies, pitched a dream idea of building a non–profit space to support artists.
“I would buy an existing cheap motel — must have a pool! — and turn it into an artist residency.
The ultimate goal would be to offer half the rooms free of cost to artists for one to six month residencies. There would be a range of lengths because some artists can afford to be away from their wage jobs/life responsibilities for longer and some cannot. Establishing a sustainable residency that is also a site-specific art environment is the goal,” said Yeapanis.
For now, though, these are just dreams, as arts funding continues to diminish, both at SAIC and nationwide.
