Poor leadership, escalating tuition, and the corruption of fashion education

Fashion schools had already been suffering from a steady decline in enrollment, astronomical tuition fees and speculation that a third level education was no longer a prerequisite to a successful career. Then the pandemic came along and exposed the cracks in fashion education's very foundation. The Great Resignation dominating headlines has not spared our field with such recent high profile exits as Simon Ungless, Director of Fashion at Academy of Art University in San Francisco; Shelley Fox, Director MFA Fashion at Parsons School of Design in NYC; and Walter Von Beirendonck from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. FashionUnited speaks to Ungless and others in a wide ranging conversation about the state of education today. Some instructors who we interview end up pulling out for fear of reprisals from their institutions as we explore the impact of school leadership during the worst months of Covid.