Chicago Portfolio School Executive Director Calls Start of Semester 'Messy and Irresponsible'

The Chicago Portfolio School, one of the biggest creative pipelines in the city, is leaving students and instructors in the dark ahead of its summer session. The for-profit organization, which charges students upwards of $19,300 per year, has collected tuition checks without providing complete scheduling for a semester scheduled to start today, according to several students and instructors Adweek spoke with. Executive director Jeff Epstein told Adweek that the lack of information is a “messy and irresponsible delay" on his part. “I’m responsible for all the good things and I’m responsible for all the bad things,” he said. “We’ve had some issues with staffing and challenges because of Covid.” Epstein told Adweek on Thursday, July 7 that classes were still set to start today as planned and schedules would be posted on Thursday. But students have only received a list of course offerings and sporadic phone calls and Slack messages from Epstein in which he asks them to send their class preferences. There are about 50 students in the program and four instructors, according to Epstein. He also mentioned that he will be refunding the students who have chosen to drop out of the program. "I've had a couple bad weeks and things are off to a rocky start, but other than that, there's absolutely nothing other than new, better and different things that we can think of to do for the future," he said. Calling out 'predatory' practices “Many of us, including myself, completely changed our lives and careers to attend portfolio school,” said a student who chose to remain anonymous. “The recent lack of transparency and communication feels disrespectful of all the time, effort and money we’ve put into the program.” Our main concern isn’t us getting paid. Our main concern is the students.Kat Hale, former instructor Students were initially told they would receive schedules during the weekend of June 17, according to student Kelsey Williams, who is entering her fourth quarter at the school. Three of the four administrative employees have abruptly quit, according to former director of education Sarah Latz, who resigned in April. Former instructor Kat Hale, who's been with the school since 2019, told Adweek she had not been paid for the last six classes she taught. She originally planned to take this quarter off, but has decided not to return. Another instructor shared that they hadn’t been paid for the past quarter. "Many instructors have resigned in the last couple of days," Hale said Friday. Epstein said the school is not behind on any payments for professors who submitted their attendance sheets, which Hale claimed she had done. The school has employed upwards of 20 instructors at any given time. Epstein sent out a course list Friday at noon, which didn't include class assignments and times. A list sent out this morning included class times, but still no assignments, according to a student. The student also said that "as of now, we do not have any confirmation that we were placed into the courses we registered for" and many instructors on the list are listed as "TBD." In some cases, instructors' names are included, but even some of those instructors were not approached to teach this quarter. “Many portfolio schools are scams, and unfortunately they are scams that the industry forces creatives to participate in,” said Hale, adding that entry-level jobs often require students to have an ad school degree, which often leaves creatives from low-income backgrounds and “parts of the country that aren’t an advertising hot-spot” with few options. Hale also stressed that the ad school pipeline is “a pretty predatory model.” “Our main concern isn’t us getting paid,” Hale said. “Our main concern is the students. $19,000 is a lot of money, and this is part of the gatekeeping in the ad industry. I want to make sure these kids get what they paid for," she said. The industry is beginning to reject the notion that an ad school degree is necessary for landing a job in the industry, threatening the future of these institutions. The "messy and irresponsible" situation at the Chicago Portfolio School follows the shutdown of Atlanta-based Creative Circus, which announced in April that it will close its doors after the class of 2023 graduates. The fall in popularity of ad schools is also due to the shift to online learning during the pandemic. It's also why more agencies like Ogilvy and Wieden+Kennedy are offering in-house incubators to help their creatives grow and hone their skills. What Is Threatening the World’s Top Ad Schools?