Why Juilliard Students are Protesting

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S N A P C H A T: Brettybang | Eddy.Chen

[mudswallow]

Music loving lawyer here - when I was in law school, our institution more than doubled our tuition. Yep, they played that trick on *law* students. Yep, we sued as soon as we graduated, they lost the suit and we recovered a hefty chunk of our tuition😁 Advice to music students - if you know a former musician who went to law school (there are lots of us), keep up the friendship.

[nxmiles]

imagine increasing fees in a pandemic when there's a massive drop in people's income and then being surprised when those people get upset

[hmind]

Our daughter was accepted to several U.S. schools, all of whom were charging more than $60K a year tuition. Much of that would have had to be covered via student loans (ironically, the REAL reason U.S. tuition has skyrocketed). She realized that would be a very poor ROI (Return on Investment). Instead, she chose an excellent university in the Netherlands, where the tuition is around $3K a year. She will graduate debt-free next year and already has several job offers in her field. So no, Juilliard is not worth it.

[sarahm]

If universities are going to treat their students like customers, then students need to treat those universities as businesses. If you don’t give me a good quality product for a good price, I’ll take my business elsewhere, regardless of the name and reputation of the brand.

[aliyahfransetteramal]

"We are testing to see that door would lock"
that is the worst reason that I heard in my life

except for my reason not to practice

[ErikCPianoman]

This problem falls on greed and corruption at the administrative level. CU Boulder just had a similar thing happen where the Board elected an under qualified president that nobody wanted (he had ties to the Board of Trustees) who immediately gave himself an over 100% raise, and then was ousted a few years after he took the position. All while the rest of the college/faculty and students struggle.

College tuition and fees have become so inflated and all that money goes to the top. I remember my professor’s door breaking and getting trapped in his studio a few times because maintenance on the building was so neglected. It’s disgusting. If nothing changes the integrity of the entire higher education system is at stake. All because the greed and dereliction of duty from of ppl at the top.

[dashenfelder]

Only at a music schools do you get harmony with your protest songs. 😂

[kittikat]

Its illegal to lock anyone in a building. Its a fire hazard. Juilliard is acting illegally in that act alone

[kobaltkween]

Having worked at a university, I can tell you that there's also a huge trend towards having professors who are neither tenured nor tenure track teaching courses. So the money is _not_ going to instruction. I know at the university I worked at, a news organization investigating us several years ago found that high level managers had increased their salaries by an _average_ of 45% over 3 years (it was actually higher for our top manager). These were the people who had started that period making $300 thou and more. Meanwhile, they'd been keeping all lower level salaries very low through average to poor performance reviews. And as much as the local news reported on this, nothing changed because of it.

Oh, and this wasn't a private university. It was a publicly funded state university.

[ysabelledelacuesta]

"We didn't lock you in. We were testing to see if it were lock."

Yeah, and I drink water to test if it's wet. 🤪

[blibleblabloblu]

Props to twoset helping the musical education community!

[tomeifranzco]

Yikes, the worst part is that Juilliard decided to track down and punish students for protesting peacefully, after they have wronged them. The tuition is absolutely ridiculous! I never knew about this, but it is absolutely outrageous.

I think students in Juilliard needs to consider the option of dropping out, like seriously consider. These fees are ridiculous- I understand there may be certain experiences that you can get only in Juilliard, but think about it- is that really the case? Is there an affordable option that may give similar experience and knowledge that you can choose? I know that Juilliard has a high reputation and is hard to get into, but I think the music society should understand that you had amazing abilities to get into the school even if you dropped out now due to the issue with Juilliard itself.

Juilliard has failed, normally when incidents like this happen... at least a public apology is issued. Now, it may be too late for this business to recover its reputation- even if an apology is released, there has to be dramatic tuition cuts for a chance of revival.

Let us all remember the joke of a business that Juilliard is, yet appreciate those who have been in it.

[aetre]

For a music school, Juilliard seems to be making some decisions that are really... tone-deaf...

[yusha]

I think the problem is much bigger than just Juilliard, as Brett said that they(Juilliard and other educational institutions) should be looking after the young talents and students and nurturing them The problem I think is that most educational institutions have turned into (and the rest are rapidly turning into) educational businesses, with most not caring about the students' well-being: educational, mental, financial you name it. The sole focus is on making money and they know the students won't stop coming because they have the monopoly of being the best schools and even if a few students drop out there will always be more students waiting in line. Not to sound cliche but the system is literally geared against a lot of students.

[jamchiell]

My son attends a junior conservatoire in Scotland and was given a huge discount because he couldn't physically attend because of the pandemic. The conservatoire did a brilliant job providing media and classes online. I am so grateful that the conservatoire was ethical and gave us a welcome and unexpected discount.

[fatpun]

"Maybe that's why Curtis's musicians are better"


Hilary and Ray: *Happy noises*
Edit: Sumina, Lang Lang and Yuja also give out some happy noises

[pamiudoff]

My music theory professor went to Juilliard. He said it was very overrated. The egos of the professors were so high that the atmosphere was stressful. Some professors wouldn’t talk to each other because of ego problems and would tell students to never take classes with certain people. He also said some professors were disrespectful of students’ time and were late to rehearsals because they were either arguing with another professor or thought of themselves so highly that they thought their time was more valuable than the students. My professor transferred to Peabody and experienced the same thing. It’s really unfortunate!

[obamaobama]

When becoming a musician is more expensive then becoming a doctor...

[trtotally]

I searched Juilliard in Youtube and there are no videos from news media talking about this problem. I am grateful for Twoset for raising awareness.

[EyeLean]

I'm a guidance counselor for musically-gifted high school students and I just sent Juilliard's admissions office an email from my personal account informing them I will be steering my juniors and seniors toward Curtis and overseas programs this year. If there are any other counselors or music teachers reading this, I encourage you to do the same this year.