It takes a good education to become a good writer. But is a master’s degree or even an MFA or PhD required? Probably not.
While a good education can help transform a creatively-gifted individual into a solid writer with all the proper skills of composition and structure necessary to be professional about your writing. But how much education is too much?
Well, it depends in part on what you can afford. Some successful writers paid attention enough in school that a high school education was sufficient. And we all know that if you go on to college, it will mean accumulating debt that eventually you’ll have to repay.
Generally, a four-year BA or BS should be sufficient for most writers, if writing is all you need. A college writing program can give a writer a lot more exposure to good writing, a discipline for churning out pages, and exposure to all forms and formats of professional writing.
But is more than a college degree essential? I’d venture to say, “Only if you want to teach as well as write.” While teaching high school is usually too time-consuming for successful, active writers to maintain as a bread-and-butter career, teaching at a college level can actually build time into your schedule that encourages you to write, although the “publish or perish” pressure will plague you until you achieve tenure.
If teaching college writing courses is your ideal bread-and-butter job, go ahead and get that higher degree like a master’s, MFA or Ph.D. But most writers who actually want to write for a living will be better off stopping at a four-year degree.
Take it from someone who made the mistake; I stayed on past my four-year degree to get my master’s and it didn’t get me better job offers out in the real world, or open more doors for my writing. What it did to was increase my student loan debt, which created a need for me to utilize the services of school loan consolidation programs.
Those are a great help, and you’ll definitely need them whether you stop at a four year degree or continue on. But keep in mind my sad lesson: continuing on for my master’s tripled my student loan debt, and I didn’t even end up with a college teaching job to help me pay it off. If you’re going to be a work-a-day writer, or someone with a day job while waiting for you big writing break, or even a journalist, take my advice: stop at a four-year degree. The extra student loan debt just isn’t worth it. You’re better off throwing yourself out into the work world and trying to get your writing career started.
When it comes to accumulating debt, there IS such a thing as “too much education.”
