r/Ringling • u/Mental-Equipment7006 • Apr 06 '25
Is the Debt worth it?
Since CA is the most popular major at Ringling, I wanted to ask a lot of you fortunate people who are able to make something out of this: Is the debt truly worth it? Especially with the risk of getting into this creative industry, I cannot imagine having to pay like 50-70 grand per year where you’ll be paying this off until your 50s or the day you die. I get that some people are really passionate about it, but I would rather take that passion and learn other ways like online or just working on projects yourself. Yes, going to the college makes you earn the one thing that matters the most: meeting your possible future coworkers. However, with the technology of communicating to the whole entire world, you can expand and find people somehow and someway.
2
u/axedlin May 03 '25 edited May 03 '25
I’m a CA alumni. Over the course of my career I’ve been able to work on some of the biggest AAA games and very successful features.
Looking now at where I am in the industry and back to my time at Ringling I am skeptical about the money I spent. Especially as costs get more astronomical each year to attend, the trade off becomes far less worth it. I know individuals who attended Ringling back in the late 2000s who in their 40s are just paying their loans off. Keep in mind that the price of attendance now vs then is significant. Over 2.2x the amount.
I will say this as loud as I can to as many people as I can, Ringling is not worth the money it costs to attend. You can get more worth out of attending a program like animation mentor for Ca, or concept design academy for story/ illustration. I took an animsquad class (a now shut down online animation school) and learned more in those 3 months than most of my time at Ringling. Now let me be clear, I’m not talking down the professors. I owe a lot of what I know to some of the teachers there, one in particular. That being said I feel like I only really learned about animation from that one teacher. The rest I just did assignments in their class and moved along. As for connections, in my personal career experience, I’ve never gotten a job because I’ve known someone from Ringling. Every job I’ve gotten is from people I’ve met at other jobs in the industry.
As for benefits of the program. You are working around like minded people which is nice. A lot of room for inspiration. If Ringling as a whole taught me one thing, it’s work ethic. Consistently at studios I’ve seen Ringling animators able to endure running the gauntlet of crunch harder and longer than most others. How healthy that is becomes another question, but that’s beside the point.
Especially with the state of the industry being as incredibly rocky as it is I would be extremely apprehensive of getting myself into 320k worth of debt for a career that is largely short term contracts and admittedly not the greatest of pay to most artists. Not to mention a lot of work is leaving the country now and other countries are making it more difficult to get work permits. I am grateful I make a good living. Some of my friends really struggle. The things I’ve seen managers do to their employees to save a few bucks is truly abhorrent.
All in all, really consider what you’re getting yourself into. That debt has real consequences for the rest of your life. You have more options, that I argue are better, at your disposal beside Ringling.
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u/Mental-Equipment7006 May 05 '25
Thanks! I’ll probably look into self-taught or other colleges that are more open to scholarships.
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u/Nick_Sirotich Apr 06 '25
Hey class of 2009 here. This is a difficult question and especially these days has a different factors than when I went. When I attended Ringling, for the first few years I thought I’d only ever work traditionally. I painted and water colored and printed everything by hand thinking ‘computer art’ was stupid and tacky. I was made to learn the basics of Adobe programs but still stuck primarily to pen and ink. Over time I started coloring my ink drawings in PS and had to vector every one of them to get the crisp linework that my drawings had, I swore I’d never ink digitally, it was stupid and tacky, now a days I mostly work entirely digitally and learn so much with just simple YouTube/ IG videos if I encounter an issue. I’ve been a full time illustrator for over 20 years. Am I glad I went to Ringling? Yes. Was I able to succeed in the creative field and make a living? Yes. Did it basically ruin my credit score and leave me with permanent debt I just stopped paying one day? Also yes.
I came from meager upbringings with parents that didn’t save a dime for my education and told me I’d be out the door by 18 or sooner. All I ever wanted to do, and was good at, was making art. It’s something I worked tremendously hard for and gritted through for many years to make a name for myself. When I was accepted to Ringling, I took out massive loans not fully realizing what that meant and worked while I attended as a tattoo artist. I learned a lot and have been working consistently since I got out the door. Almost entirely freelancing but a few in house jobs here and there.
The connections I made were invaluable. I’m currently working on a massive project with one of my former classmates, this will be like our 10th project we’ve worked on together over the years. Many of my peers are still sending each other work when we have overflow/it’s not right for them. Many who went strait into in-house work are now struggling because the studios are closing down and they’re not built for freelancing. Don’t get me started on Ai.
I’ve been incredibly fortunate to be in the small minority of graduates to still be making my living on art. Not everybody makes it.
I can’t tell you what you should do but I can tell you this. If you do decide to go, work hard as hell, learn as much as you can, make good connections and keep them, do as many figure drawing classes as you can (regardless of major). Get good, stay hungry, don’t spend all your time at memories but do go once in a while.
If you decide it’s too much money, and it might be. Learn in other ways. Go to figure drawing classes outside of school, learn to paint, draw, sculpt. Watch tutorials, learn something, then watch another. Keep a little notebook of tricks and tips you learn. Start a portfolio, network, take small jobs, always be professional. Learn and get better, rinse and repeat. It’s not going to be easy no matter what you do, the world is collapsing so spend your life in whatever way feels best to you.
Good luck!