Brooks Photography School Closing: Shattered Dreams

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Brooks Institute was one of the most famous photography schools in the US, established over 70 years ago. Its closure was announced August 12, 2016 due to ever stringent education regulations - leaving unprepared students and employees in an unforeseen limbo.

Will students be able to complete their studies and get degrees at other institutions any time soon?
What other schools will accept their transfer credits? How worthwhile is a degree or credits from a closed school?
Its a sad situation. Time will tell.

the students side is well described here
http://www.vcstar.com/news/local/ve...se-3a498362-9cb4-16ff-e053-010-390738841.html

the business side, the difficulties
http://www.vcstar.com/news/local/ve...7c-6b02-5967-e053-0100007fc2ec-390738451.html

closing annoucement
https://www.brooks.edu/brooks-institute-to-close/

wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Institute
 
It's becoming harder and harder to compete with the change in education. Information is accessible in a way like never before. I'm not saying that you can learn everything you might need to know from the interwebs, but times are a'changin.
 
Photography (and art schools in general) have had a hard time in recent years - the market for professional photographers has changed drastically and makes the prospect of a dedicated degree program an expensive proposition with less guarantee of being able to make it pay for itself.

It is sad to lose an institution like Brooks, but the writing has been on the wall for some time.
 
The writing has been on the walls so to say since 1999 when the Brooks Institute of Photography was sold by Ernest H. Brooks, Jr. to Career Education Corporation (CEC), which is a for-profit higher education corporation and they sold off the fantastic campus they had in Santa Barbara and moved to Ventura. The add to it they they sold off again 2015 to another For Profit organization.
 
I recall listening to a podcast from current Brooks students talk about the current Ventura Campus didn't even have a dark room. I know it's sort of dated technology, but it's a photography school. It surprised me for sure.
 
It's sad, for profit has been under attack when they started to be bought up by financial types who try to generate as much profit as possible.

I have teaching for a For-Profit Institution that is shrinking. My campus (location) stopped admitting new students a couple semisters ago. Rather than closing the doors, we are stay open till all the students have had a chance to complete their course of study. They drop below full time, no guarantees replacement classes will be available.

Most of the instructors are adjunct (part time) but we all see what's coming. No more drafting, one more semester for electrical engineering types, about the same for software development, perhaps two. I've got two kids that stuck it out in Server Opperations and Support that I think will be the last two out the door.

Education for profit isn't bad, but the folks who are only there for a profit are not the sharpest tools in the shed. The crew that took us over brought in some high pressure sales types that promised the world to students. Happened at a lot of other instructions too.

Very sad the folks at the helm of Brooks are taking the easy way out. Sounds like the instructors are stepping up to help as best they can.

Thanks for sharing Mr S, hope you're feeling better.

B2(;->
 
It is a remarkably bad situation in how they went about this closure...the students, what a terrible hand to be dealt.

Truly a shame such a fine institution ended up this way.
 
As I recall (and as far as I can see from a quick web-search) they had no regional accreditation, meaning that credits could only be transferred on a case-by-case basis, if then. I used to live near Santa Barbara from 1987 to 1992 and visited Brooks on a number of occasions. I was underwhelmed: I never felt or saw any "buzz" there, though maybe I was just unlucky on the few occasions I took a look around. Like many photography colleges, it was part professional training school and part finishing school for the well to do.

Although I feel deeply sorry for the students, who have been unforgivably let down, it looked to me even 25 years ago as if Brooks was living on borrowed time.

Incidentally, what were these "government regulations"? Again, to the casual observer it looked as if the owners quit because they weren't very good at running a photography school.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
As I recall (and as far as I can see from a quick web-search) they had no regional accreditation, meaning that credits could only be transferred on a case-by-case basis, if then.
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Just one of the many quirks of the US American educational sytem(s) 😉

Like many photography colleges, it was part professional training school and part finishing school for the well to do.
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Well, many US American colleges (except the med schools and some of the science schools and a few of the law schools) are in fact at best comparable to a more or less decent European Prep School … US Americans don't like to hear that, of course.

Incidentally, what were these "government regulations"?
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As usual, nothing but a lame excuse.

Again, to the casual observer it looked as if the owners quit because they weren't very good at running a photography school.
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Exactly.
 
Roger Hicks said:
As I recall (and as far as I can see from a quick web-search) they had no regional accreditation, meaning that credits could only be transferred on a case-by-case basis, if then. I used to live near Santa Barbara from 1987 to 1992 and visited Brooks on a number of occasions. I was underwhelmed: I never felt or saw any "buzz" there, though maybe I was just unlucky on the few occasions I took a look around. Like many photography colleges, it was part professional training school and part finishing school for the well to do.

Although I feel deeply sorry for the students, who have been unforgivably let down, it looked to me even 25 years ago as if Brooks was living on borrowed time.

Incidentally, what were these "government regulations"? Again, to the casual observer it looked as if the owners quit because they weren't very good at running a photography school.

Cheers,

R.
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The government here has been cracking down of for-profit schools that charge outrageously high tuition for very low-quality education. Most for-profit school degrees are worthless in the job market because many employers just plain won't hire people who went to those schools, and the credits the students earn won't transfer to real colleges and universities because of the poor quality of the classes at the for-profits.

There are a couple of these for profit 'colleges' in Fort Wayne. When I was a high school teacher, we always advised our kids who wanted to go to college in Fort Wayne to go to Indiana University, Purdue University, or Ivy Tech. These are all state-supported colleges that have campuses in Fort Wayne. They provide an excellent education at a very, very low cost. The degrees they grant are respected by employers and the credits you earn at all three of them will transfer to other schools.

Some examples. Ivy Tech is a vocational school. The tuition is $3000 a year for a full-time student. Some of the degrees they offer are also offered by for-profit schools here like Brown-Mackie College. Brown-Mackie charges an astounding $23,000 a year! Oh, and the degree isn't worth the paper its printed on.

A couple years ago, the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette did a story on these for-profit schools. They asked a number of local business leaders if they would hire Brown-Mackie grads, and if they would hire Ivy Tech grads. The people they interviewed, some were local business owners, others were managers of the Fort Wayne operations of large corporations. All of them, EVERY ONE, said their companies NEVER hire grads from for-profit schools. Ever.

When asked about Ivy Tech, most of them said they hire Ivy Tech grads all the time! So, you can spend $3000 a year and get a degree that will get you a job, or you can spend $23,000 and get a degree printed on toilet paper and life-crushing debt that you'll never be able to pay off.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
or you can spend $23,000 and get a degree printed on toilet paper and life-crushing debt that you'll never be able to pay off.
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$23000 is life crushing? Come to Canada keeping in mind the whole university/college terminology is different. University education starts at least in the $50,000's and can go to 6 digits quickly.

I think I came out around $20000 with my college education. Not life crushing at all.
 
BLKRCAT said:
$23000 is life crushing? Come to Canada keeping in mind the whole university/college terminology is different. University education starts at least in the $50,000's and can go to 6 digits quickly.

I think I came out around $20000 with my college education. Not life crushing at all.
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$23,000 PER YEAR. Not for the whole degree.

I spent $15,000 for my BFA from Indiana University in the late 1990s. Back then it took 5 years to complete. At $23,000 a year, it would have cost me $115,000. That is life-crushing. You can buy a NICE house in Indiana for that.
 
Thanks radi(c)al_cam and Chris for further insights. They rather confirmed my suspicions, but as someone who never studied in the US it is hardly my place to say so.

As for the "finishing school" aspect, yes, well, many universities world-wide are like that, even the good ones. Oxford, in particular, is on the one hand among the best universities in the world, while on the other hand providing the final polish to a public school education and its associated privilege.

On that last point, I'm not sure entirely what you mean, radi(c)al_cam, by a "Prep School". Presumably the equivalent of a French prépa, the crammer that gets you into one of the Grandes Ecoles. It takes a couple of years after you get your baccalauréat, which is roughly equivalent to an American high school diploma or an English set of A levels; but I see from Wikipedia that a baccalaureate means a first degree in the USA.

In England, a prep school prepares you for public school (which is of course private). Traditionally you left prep at 13 and went on to public school but now it's mostly at 11. Fees for public schools are hair-raising. My old school, Plymouth College, is about as minor as public schools get, charges fees for next year from £8665 per term to £9930 per term (call it £27,000 a year, or maybe $35,000) for boarding and £4340 to £5140 per term for day school. I went there under the Direct Grant scheme whereby in return for a Local Authority grant the school gave 20 free scholarships a year. Even the prep school is around £10,000 a year. Eton is about 20% more expensive than my old school: $40,000+

I don't know enough about other European countries' educational systems to comment.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
On that last point, I'm not sure entirely what you mean, radi(c)al_cam, by a "Prep School". Presumably the equivalent of a French prépa, the crammer that gets you into one of the Grandes Ecoles. It takes a couple of years after you get your baccalauréat, which is roughly equivalent to an American high school diploma or an English set of A levels;
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Yes, the terminology is very confusing, at least when one is trying a transnational comparison. Initially, by «prep school» I meant the US American «(university) prep schools» (more or less «elitist» high schools), but in fact, apart from the fees (or lack of fees), I guess some of the better US American junior colleges can be actually compared to the French prépas.

but I see from Wikipedia that a baccalaureate means a first degree in the USA.
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Thanks to the «Bologna process», many universities in the European Union did adopt the term «Bachelor (of XYZ)» in the Anglosphere's sense — of course an additional confusion, especially for the French it's outraging.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
$23,000 PER YEAR. Not for the whole degree.

I spent $15,000 for my BFA from Indiana University in the late 1990s. Back then it took 5 years to complete. At $23,000 a year, it would have cost me $115,000. That is life-crushing. You can buy a NICE house in Indiana for that.
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Ah per year. Seems similar then. Instead though for that money you would get a degree from a reputable school.

I wish you could get a nice house for 115k though. That's peanuts compared to the housing market in Toronto now, I don't even think you could get an empty lot for that.
 
BLKRCAT said:
I wish you could get a nice house for 115k though. That's peanuts compared to the housing market in Toronto now, I don't even think you could get an empty lot for that.
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As with anything, that's relative. There are parts of Indiana where that's possible, but other parts (like Indianapolis) where it would be much harder. Toronto, no, but out in Peterborough, or another outlying area, very possible.
 
I attended BIP back at its height, the early 1970s.

The two campi, Montecito and Riviera, were hyper active with swarms of serious, dedicated students, many of whom were older than typical, being ex-military going to school on the G.I. bill.

Classes were rigorous, faculty demanding. The school's reputation was sterling and nationwide.
I landed my first college teaching position in large part because I went to Brooks.

I revisited not long ago and was shocked to see what had become of it.

So sorry for current faculty and staff and, especially, students who will now "matriculate" with little to show for their efforts but student loan debt.
 
A few years ago, my wife and I were visiting our daughter in L.A. and we were driving (our daughter did the driving) to a place to visit (Hearst) and I asked if we could stop at Brooks. To me it looked like a resort for rich kids to do whatever they did. I believe, at one time, it was a first rate school to receive an education, probably for the WWII folks.

For my photography formal education and some of my photography friends, we apprenticed with Monte Zucker. What's wrong with that? It cost, in dollars, very little, but the rewards reaped were pretty good. Our PPA affiliate here focuses on photography as a business and how each of us can be successful in many arenas, with family, community, the industry and have happy clients.

My son in law works in the Hollywood industry and it has really changed from many vantage points, from the tools/technology used, distribution, making the movies to how folks view them. Perhaps Brooks didn't keep up with the changes.
 
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