There’s another side to yesterday’s con­ver­sa­tion about the value of an elite jazz edu­ca­tion beyond issues of cost to the stu­dent or qual­ity of instruc­tion. Com­ments to my post by Bill Kirch­ner and Sav­age­mu­sic remind us that many top-drawer musi­cians are able to make a liv­ing thanks to jazz pro­grams like Oberlin’s (where Sav­age­mu­sic matric­u­lates) and the New School’s (where Bill teaches). The rise of university-level jazz pro­grams has been a god­send to many vet­eran jazz musi­cians, as eco­nomic oppor­tu­ni­ties become fewer with each pass­ing year. The per­sis­tence of poverty among elderly jazz musi­cians is a prob­lem. Teach­ing jazz in uni­ver­sity has cer­tainly pro­vided a life­line for more than one great artist who might oth­er­wise be destitute.

How­ever, any good done by putting these guys to work doesn’t ame­lio­rate the fact that by charg­ing kids so much, big-time jazz schools are com­mit­ting legal lar­ceny. A bach­e­lors degree in jazz is hardly worth the paper it’s printed on. Pay-for-play oppor­tu­ni­ties are exceed­ingly rare, and in any case don’t require a diploma. You can talk all you want about the many ben­e­fits afforded a stu­dent at The New School or NEC or Man­hat­tan or Jul­liard — and they are no doubt real — but when the stu­dent loan bill comes due, how will these kids pay? With the money they make dri­ving cabs? Those $30K high school band direct­ing gigs?

Maybe one per­cent of jazz grads will make a liv­ing play­ing jazz (and of those, only the Brad Mehldaus can hope to make the kind of bread needed to pay off a siz­able debt … the Brad Mehldaus tend not to stay in school very long … and in any case — as Sav­age­mu­sic points out — their way is usu­ally paid). What of the rest?

(Advis­ing them to take up bass — while per­haps wise — would only par­tially solve the problem.)

In a world where great jazz musi­cians reg­u­larly play for the door in abject dumps, surely we can agree that sad­dling a 23 year-old kid with $70,000 in debt is a hideous idea, even if it allows a rel­a­tively few teach­ers and admin­is­tra­tors to make a decent living.

That’s not to say the edu­ca­tors are get­ting rich, because they’re not. Bureau­cracy is a sponge that soaks both teacher and pupil. It would be nice if some­one could fig­ure out a way to get the old cats and young cats together in a way that bypasses that extra layer.

Ideas, any­one?