Yale School of Drama is planning to eliminate tuition for all of its new and returning students in its masters, doctoral, and certificate programs, following an announcement that billionaire music mogul and left-wing mega donor David Geffen is giving the school a $150 million gift.
Starting in August, the graduate school — which enrolls about 200 students in programs that include acting, design, directing, and playwriting — will go tuition-free, and will be renamed as the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University, according to a report by the New York Times.
Yale says it believes the Geffen’s gift is the largest in the history of American theater. Tuition at the drama school was $32,800 per year.
“We know, because people have told us, that there are potential applicants out there who think they could never afford graduate theater training at an Ivy League school,” said drama school dean, James Bundy.
“By reducing the debt burden of the average student, we create more resilient artists and managers who are able to make braver artistic choices,” Bundy added. “Not every artist is going to break through at the age of 25 or 26 or 27. Certain kinds of careers take time to build, and entering the professions with less debt is going to make for more interesting and more resounding choices in the long run.”
The Yale School of Drama will now become the second program at the university to eliminate tuition. In 2005, the Yale School of Music went tuition-free, reports the New York Times.
“In general, what should be happening in higher education is an attempt to reduce the financial burden on individuals and families associated with undergraduate education and graduate and professional education,” said Peter Salovey, the president of Yale University.
“I’d love to do this for other programs as well, but it will take the generosity of donors to make it happen,” Salovey added.
Geffen — who once taught a seminar at Yale about the music industry in the 1970s — is the founder of record labels Asylum Records, Geffen Records, and DGC Records, as well as film studio DreamWorks, and is currently worth about $10.2 billion, according to Forbes.
The billionaire has also donated to the disgraced anti-Trump super PAC Lincoln Project, which later became engulfed in multiple scandals, including its co-founder John Weaver facing allegations from over 20 young men accusing him of sending “inappropriate,” and unsolicited sexually charged messages.
In April, Geffen signed a letter opposing voter integrity laws. In March of last year, the billionaire notified the world that he was going to avoid the Chinese coronavirus pandemic by hunkering down aboard his private yacht, Rising Sun, which was sailing somewhere off the coast of the Grenadines in the Caribbean at the time.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.