CAA News Today

Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

What Is the Future of Higher Education?

A bachelor’s degree is more valuable than ever, yet college enrollment in the United States is declining. As the economy has improved and tuition has increased, more young adults have sought options outside higher education. The plight of for-profit colleges—which tend to enroll low-income students—has accounted for much of the enrollment drop. State support for higher education has also weakened. (Read more from the Atlantic.)

Five Legal Cases Changing the Art Market as We Know It

How is the law changing the art market, and what are the key problems to watch for in 2016? Here Artsy has considered five of the most significant issues for collectors and industry professionals alike. (Read more from Artsy.)

Taxing Times: Private Museums under Scrutiny by US Government

The United States government is scrutinizing the tax-exempt status of private museums and questioning whether some institutions benefit their wealthy founders more than the general public. The Senate Finance Committee sent a letter to eleven single-donor museums in November requesting information about attendance, opening hours, trustees, and grant-making activities. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)

The Postdoctoral Applicant

Much of the advice for job applicants seems to focus on ABD candidates or on PhDs immediately after their defense. How different is the job market for someone like me—a postdoc with significantly more publications and experience? (Read more from Vitae.)

More Grads Have “Excessive” Debt

The growing public focus on student-loan debt in recent years has been driven by some numbers that really matter—like the passing of the $1 trillion threshold in the amount of total outstanding loan debt—and some that are less meaningful, such as anecdotal reports about baristas who accumulated $120,000 in debt. Exactly which data points tell the true story about the seriousness of the crisis is to some extent in the eye of the beholder. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

Options for Paying Down Debt during Grad School

Many graduate students are in one or more kinds of debt, be it student loans, an auto loan, credit-card debt, a mortgage, or personal loans. How a graduate student should manage debt depends on the ability to repay it, a personal disposition toward debt, and the type and terms of the debt. Students who can pay down debt during grad school must choose their repayment method and balance that goal with other financial priorities. (Read more from GradHacker.)

With Millennial Philanthropy Money Flowing, Arts Groups Miss Out

Though millennials are a generosity-minded bunch, their data-driven approach has left a traditional beneficiary of charitable giving out in the cold: the arts. Cultural institutions, which have historically been high on the list of those with flush pockets, as well as smaller arts nonprofits, are straining to attract a new generation of donors that demands a metric for each dollar spent. (Read more from the Seattle Times.)

How 2015 May Have Marked the End of the Art Market’s Boom Years

There are signs that the art market reached terminal velocity in 2015 but is now slowing down. This was a year of new records as billionaires battled for trophy works of art, spending enormous sums of money in the process. Yet buyers showed increasing discernment, balking at the obvious instances of auction-house greed and snubbing works that were simply not good enough for their price tags. (Read more from the Guardian.)