The impending closure of the Art Institute of Tucson will make it more difficult locally for students to pursue fashion design at a higher educational level.
The school is no longer accepting new students as of this year. The Art Institute of St. Louis and the Art Institute of California Los Angeles also are closing, according to Bob Greenlee, a spokesman for Education Management Corp.
The number of years the Tucson school remains open will depend on students’ programs and courses of study, according to Greenlee, who added that it could be as many as three or four years before the school shuts its doors.
Closure would leave Pima Community College, the Art Institute of Phoenix, Phoenix College and Mesa Community College as the only schools left in the state with fashion design programs. Arizona State University, however, plans to add a program.
Greenlee said the Art Institute of Tucson will continue to provide classes and support to its students until the last batch graduates.
“The institution will remain open and will remain operational and active for a number of years going forward,” Greenlee said. “There’s nothing that’s going to happen very soon.”
Despite the closure of many Art Institute locations across the country, The Art Institute of Phoenix is still accepting new enrollments, Greenlee said.
Kimberly Loyd, the fashion design teacher at Flowing Wells High School, said she had a student who met with an admissions officer at the Art institute of Tucson and was ready to attend next year.
“Two weeks later, they made the announcement that it was going to close, and that was a very difficult thing for her because she had liked what she saw when she visited the campus,” Loyd said. “It was very disappointing for her.
“It takes away a local opportunity for students who are interested in fashion.”
When Loyd speaks with her students about college options, she said she finds that they care greatly about industry connections and after-college career placement when deciding where to attend.
She also said she asks them which side of the fashion industry they want to go into: design, which is sewing and creating garments, or merchandising, which is the business and product development side. Her students were split this year, she said.
No matter what path they choose, for the students who participate in Loyd’s two-year fashion design program, many are learning valuable sewing skills for the first time.
“Most of the students, I would say honestly, 95 percent of the kids who come through my program in the beginning, have never sewn before in their life,” Loyd said.
Some of those students progress, and stay in the program longer than the two years that the school typically offers, which Loyd said better prepares them to go to college if they choose to pursue fashion design.
But students interested in learning fashion design in high school have increasingly limited options in the state.
Loyd moved to Arizona seven years ago and said, “When I came, there were five fashion programs and unfortunately, three of those programs have been dropped from their school’s curriculum.”
The only other high school with a fashion program in Tucson is Rincon High School, according to Loyd.
“It’s such as unusual program,” Loyd said. “I mean, it’s something so specialized.”
Though options are diminishing, there is possible future hope for students who want to pursue fashion at a university level.
In the fall of 2017, Arizona State University may be the first state university in Arizona to offer a bachelor’s degree in fashion, allowing students to learn a variety of fashion-related skills and transition successfully to a university level program, said Matt Ransom, an academic success coordinator at ASU.
While this new degree program has not yet been approved, he said it is currently in development to be proposed to the Arizona Board of Regents.
While Northern Arizona University has a fashion merchandising minor and the University of Arizona has a retailing and consumer sciences degree program, no state university offers a fashion design-based degree.
