If you want to be a successful professional photographer, there’s not a single university in Texas that I can recommend. I don’t know every single university, in Texas, and I don’t know if there’s a sleeper (good but unknown) program, as there has been in the past. There was UT Arlington for photojournalism in the mid to late 1980′s. There was East Texas State University which produced none other than Mark Seliger, and had a great run, until that program got gutted.

You see, the trend in university education, in photography, in photojournalism, is to promise nothing and deliver not much more than that. Cases where parents sued a university and instructors for making bold predictions about a program’s success rate are plentiful, and some struck close to home.

If you were raised in the old school, criticism was part of the learning process. These days universities have gone all “Rodney King.” Everybody goes along and gets along, and there’s no room for seasoned, experienced photographers to teach on the university level. A seasoned photographer, with street experience, brings the unwanted specters of a) reality, and b) confidence to know what the real score is in the real world.

People who know me could be saying right now, “Don’t light that match! Don’t burn that bridge!” The reality is there are no bridges from the academics in local University of North Texas or Texas Woman’s University – to the professionals working in the various fields of photography! And the reasons why read like the fall of an empire:

• Professors go by lots of different cloaks, but tenure is out, full professorship is out, doctorates are out and job security is out.
• Jumping how high is in. It’s what you do to keep the educational machine running that counts. How many committees are you on? How full are your classes? What is their passing rate? What is their graduation rate? Keep ‘em moving, yeee haaaw!
• Higher education, in general, is a business – profit / loss – raise profits, and lower losses

It’s hard to fault the instructors. They don’t want to be in the real world on a full-time basis, too scary for them, and way too insecure. Besides, once they’re on a track, why would they get off it? They’re riding a train, and it’s full of gravy!

Whether offering free help to the school newspaper at UNT (the NT Daily), or trying to find out whether it would be worthwhile to create a complete curriculum on “Succeeding in the Field of Photography” for photographers in the visual arts, the responses are slim-and-none respectively. My old newspaper the NT Daily was given over to students as “their paper” to write about whatever they want (perhaps that has changed for the better?), while silence is the only response from the art building.

So, you can see that if you are seeking knowledge in a university setting, you need to be very careful about which university you choose. I can assure you that if you go all the way through in the next two to four years, and find a diploma in your hot little hands, it will be followed by a statement showing how much you owe for that diploma. That’s why I now say, a diploma in photography is equivalent to a degree in snow boarding, surfing (insert your own bummery here ______), and unless Barack Obama comes to your rescue, which he will, you are in for a hard start.

It happens again, and again, and again. Is it their fault? Sure, some of the burden lies on them, but damn, shouldn’t that be a requirement for graduation!!! Look, if you feel a university is the way to go for an education in photography, go to a university that has a reputation for that – PHOTOGRAPHY! Otherwise, forget about getting a leg up on anyone by getting a degree in photojournalism or art-photography from an institution not known for producing professionals. It’s that simple: Kids, parents — ask the instructors if they produce professionals. Ask for names and contact information. If they don’t provide it immediately FORGET THEM. 

IT COSTS MONEY

Get this; not only does your education cost, what 60-thousand?, if you get in a program that is in any way connected to professional photography reality, you are going to spend about 10-thousand on equipment before you can produce professional results and compete with working professionals. It’s the one security blanket all pros wear – better equipment that produces better results than all those young hotshot wannabes. We worked hard to get the best gear, drive/drove crappy cars and slept on futons for twenty years just so we can have the best. If you aren’t ready to fork over AT LEAST 5-thousand while in school, you should find a major that only demands sharp pencils, paper and pens with ink. Get a grip on reality. Sure, your parents got by with a 200-dollar camera in the good old days, but they forgot about the thousands they spent on film processing and printing. Perhaps they are accountants, so maybe they know the score. Ask the instructors how much you will be spending on equipment to go from beginning to end of their photography program. If they have more than one course in old school film / printing techniques – move on. Learn that on your own time and your own dime later down the road, if you must. If the number they give isn’t between the two numbers (5-10K) mentioned here, move on.