Funding Wars

I would like to direct your attention to an article published last year in The Altlantic here, courtesy of Nillywilly on the Speakeasy Forums. It comes in at a hefty 10-11 pages, and touches on all the important (and interesting) MFA-related topics such as funding, prestige, alumni, faculty, etc.

Most interesting to me was the segment on "Funding" on pages 4-6 of the article, which goes into great detail about the "funding wars" occurring with the elite programs, the Virginia's, Iowa's, Michigan's, Texas', Irvine's, of the country. Specifically, what struck me was how much like college sports recruiting the whole process was. If you know anything about college recruiting (football and basketball being the most glamorous of the college sports), you'd understand that an "arms race" of funding and courting occurs between schools in the furious grab to sign the best of the best every year -- and has been going for years, decades. In fact, whole communities and websites have popped up around the concept of recruitment -- ever wanted to know who were the top defensive backs of 2009's high school class? Well, now you can find out here.

And what do these elite sport schools do to court the very best? They provide scholarships. Waive tuitions. Promise the best and the brightest coaches. Offer the most sophisticated and state-of-the-art training facilities and gyms. Is this so different from what's happening with the MFA? As Edward Delany intimates in his article, the most prestigious MFA programs "bid" over the finest talents with higher and higher stipends, better and bigger-named faculty, and varied and inventive classes and programs. It's wildly interesting to me, to suddenly realize that this is really just what college football and basketball have been doing for decades -- now in the very subjective arena of creative writing programs.