Let’s get real about the financial payoff of a writing degree. Debra Spark has been in the publishing trenches for 40 years, publishing five novels, two short story collections, and two books on the craft of fiction.
Even with that pedigree, her writing income swings wildly from $15,000 to $35,000 in a good year down to a projected $300 next year. She admits to being “downwardly mobile” in the industry, transitioning from big New York houses to smaller independent presses where the advances are drastically lower. That unvarnished reality completely dictates how she advises her students when they ask if an MFA in creative writing is worth it.
For decades, Debra stitched together a living by combining her freelance income with a non-tenured, 3/5ths time professorship at Colby College and a 25-year teaching stint at the Warren Wilson MFA program. She hustled hard to cover her expenses, writing roughly 180 articles for shelter magazines at a dollar a word during her peak freelance years.
Because she knows exactly how hard it is to survive on words alone, she gives her undergrads a blunt warning about graduate school. “I don’t think any student should incur additional debt to go to an MFA, because the writing life just doesn’t have a lot of financial reward for most,” she says.
While she acknowledges the non-monetary benefits of an MFA—like advancing your skills and building a lifelong literary community—she stresses that it isn’t a traditional career investment. “It’s not a career path degree the way a law degree or other professional degrees are,” she explains.
Her advice is simple and strict: unless you have independent financial means, you should only apply to fully funded programs. Going into severe debt for a degree that won’t guarantee a living wage is a dangerous trap, and Debra wants young writers to understand the math before they sign on the dotted line.
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