SCAD was unaccredited for a long time and has been a role model for corporate style education. Their model and frankly a lot of art schools is high cost attached to high drop out rates.
There is usually a tough freshman program at most art and design schools that is designed to weed out but take money. They do not expect to retain the students just their money.
It's a bit late in the season to be applying for undergrad but I would definitely check out RISD, Parsons, and the Chicago Art Institute. Similar costs with much better results for their students in terms of job placement and retention and graduation rates.
If you don't have a scholarship or financial backing from your parents or whomever I can tell you leaving school with 120k in debt will be crippling, especially in this boom and bust style economy we're running here in the states.
The key to any art and design school is the intensity of the program.
You shouldn't sleep, you should be worked like a dog and you should hope to be working at least 60-70 hours a week on your skills, otherwise you probably won't develop the chops to make it in any art field.
I went to the Columbus College of Art and Design back when it was hardcore and we worked like dogs and I went from someone who couldn't hardly draw to someone who is considered a very competent draftsman, but the school has poor job placement and they revamped their foundation program so that it is much less brutal as they are focusing more on retention instead of culling to find the cream of the crop.
The biggest thing though after quality of program is tuition and art school is crazy crazy expensive. My loans are around 80 grand and my loan payments are roughly 1100 dollars a month and a majority are federal loans.
If you want to make good dough in art go digital/video game/advertising or industrial design.
Also, there are no professor jobs around really so if you're looking at fine arts and eventually an MFA you will not be saved by getting a great professor job most likely.
Roughly 200 applicants per professor position.
Sorry to blast out the cold hard sober factoids but this is all information I didn't have when I was making decisions and I wish someone would have sat down with me and been like, dude you're going to be 50 and probably neck deep in debt, is that a worthwhile trade for you?
If your local community college has a good art program you may want to consider knocking out your core classes for 1/30th the cost and then apply to an art school for your last couple/three years of school.
Best of luck and the greatest successes in your future arting!
