art degree roommate just told me most of her profs don't have higher ed. degrees

Why the hell would you need a higher degree to teach art? That's like insisting a 1st grade teacher have a masters degree.

I doubt that. I was a humanities major and all of my profs had a PhD. If it is true in the case of your friend, they probably aren't "professors," they're lecturers, in which case they don't need a PhD. It'd be like a TA teaching a class.

I have to agree with the above poster. Often the students of the teachers can be more up to par. The teachers are there to facilitate and entice the student's creativity - not drill them with knowledge. The best art teacher would be someone with experience. Experience is often more crucial than skill in the art world since style from long term devotion to an art can create a skillful appearance, not the other way around.

art teachers at universities have to be artists who show their work at reputable galleries, and there are many artists out there looking for a means of supporting themselves, so it is actually very competitive to become a university art teacher.

The OP isn't an engineering major in college. No one says "art degree roommate"

the minimum qualification to "teach art" at the secondary level in any formal sense is an MFA in your relevant discipline, and for any job not in a community college or whatever you will probably need some respectable critical opinion of your work on public display

To summarize what people have said:

There aren't PhDs in art (although there are for art history)...professors will have MFAs and a substantial record of publications/exhibitions etc. Many schools will have lecturer positions filled by underpaid instructors with a BFA and/or a substantial publication/exhibition record.

The exact requirements for instructors generally varies by the college, and sometime by the department, the course is in. In my department (Geography), you have to have the equivalent of a master's to teach undergrad courses and a PhD to teach graduate level courses.

Adjuncts and minimally qualified lecturers are the wave of the future, with budget crunches and all.

it's art. Only experience and a body of work is needed.

No Way wrote:

The OP isn't an engineering major in college. No one says "art degree roommate"

Lmao, OP here - I can promise you that I'm an engineering student (senior) ...not sure how the engineering students at your school address art students...

When Pat Metheny enrolled at the University of Miami he quickly realized he wasn't cut out for college. After telling his department advisor he was going to drop out they offered the eighteen year old better deal -- a teaching position.

Do you think that a better hire would have been a phd who published a hundred articles on arcane music topics or one of the greatest musicians who ever lived?