Tag Archives: Education

If Educational Attainment is the Most Valuable Predictor of Arts Attendance, Can the Arts Become a Magnet for a More Highly-Educated Populace?

39.4% of Americans have at least a 2-year college degree.

Of the 25 most populous metropolitan areas (not limited to the city limits), only 15 surpass that percentage by more than 1%.

They are (in order of percentage, high-low):

  1. DC
  2. Boston
  3. Oakland-San Francisco
  4. Minneapolis
  5. Seattle
  6. Denver
  7. New York
  8. Baltimore
  9. Pittsburgh
  10. San Diego
  11. Portland
  12. Chicago
  13. Atlanta
  14. Philadelphia
  15. St. Louis

Coincidentally, every one of these cities exceeds the mean in inter-city US migration (moving from one US city to another).

When you eliminate people who have attended school-based arts performances and exhibitions in which they have a significantly personal connection to the art (a child, a neighbor, etc.), fewer than 50% of Americans have paid to experience the arts.

Does that mean that we give up on the arts in other metropolitan areas? Or might the arts serve as an attractor for highly-educated migrants?

2014. A year of art awaits you. Predictions for the year to come…

A company you’ve never heard of will produce something special.

A famous company everyone knows will close down.

A play will shake your long-held beliefs.

A concert will move you to tears.

You’ll stop short and get lost in a painting.

You’ll attend an amazing performance that can’t be pigeonholed as theatre, dance, comedy, or music.

Another new study will come out proving that kids with in-school arts education will enjoy great test scores, not join gangs, and will have a tendency to be drug-free. Their community participation will be more extensive, and they’ll be likelier to enter college.

Despite that, in-school arts education will disappear.

Great arts nonprofits will find universally-accepted ways to quantify impact and will receive all the funding they require.

I wish you love, luck, and success in 2014.  Oh yes, and art.

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