The fact that enrollments in traditional music, dance, and theater performance degrees have stagnated and job prospects have become dim is undisputed. It’s a simple supply-and-demand problem — with the steady decline of full-time performance-based arts careers, there already are too many students graduating from colleges, universities, and conservatories in performance programs with narrowly focused career paths that cannot be realized.
This does not mean that students with the talent, passion, and drive should be discouraged from an arts-performance major, nor that a small percentage of performance graduates won’t enjoy a lifelong career in the arts.
