Brooks Institute of Photography

They were once a small prestigious photography school in beautiful Santa Barbara. That all changed in the early 2000s, when a company called Career Education Corporation took over and turned it into one of the most disgusting for profit schools in the nation.
Students saddled with over 100k in student loans and worthless non transferable degrees is common.
I cannot recommend this school or any for profit school for that matter.

Could not ask for a better staff.

I attended Brooks and graduated with my BA in 2006. (yes, one of the 15% to actually graduate)
The Good: Brooks hires top quality teachers to educate you. The faculty is excellent and building networks with professionals like that is invaluable. They have an excess of great equipment for you to learn from and help immerse you in a studio environment that is quite accurate to real world studio environments. I took away a great deal about photography technically that most other trade schools wouldn’t even delve into. They offer 21 weeks of the most difficult lighting courses in the world! I would recommend this college for people who can afford it and are looking for to get their Master’s in photography/​advertising.
The Bad: Yes, they had a lawsuit, yes it was ugly and no I wouldn’t recommend this college to undergrad students. The GE courses are not very good, it is better to get them from a local community college first. The school is INCREDIBLY expensive, and I feel that if you aren’t 100% POSITIVE that you want to be a professional photographer for life that you should not attend. The classes are intense and expensive and not ideal for someone who «just wants a creative degree».
All in all I don’t regret going to this college. I am proud that I am 1 of the 15% per class that actually complete the program. But I also didn’t buy into the «you will make 6 figures straight out of college» crap they were trying to feed me. I went, and began building a career myself the old fashioned truthful way. Take from what it you can. This is a VERY technical college.

all colleges are expensive, brooks does the trick by only being 3 years for your bfa. I like that and obviously santa barbara is an amazing location for the school. Brooks is somewhere you have to go if you’re passionate and willing to learn. Not every school is perfect, and brooks is definitely nowhere close. But just like any other school, it’s a place where you learn about your passion and are fully immersed in it for the time you are there.

I was extremely interested in Brooks Institute when I first stumbled across their website. I’ve been on the hunt for a decent film/​photography program in California and I thought I had finally found the one. So I set up a phone appointment with an admissions representative (though I still cannot find his name on the Brooks Institute faculty catalog) in hopes that I would finally be able to make up my mind on a college.
Not only was he 30 minutes late in calling me for our 4:00 appointment, he proceeded to drone on and on about the alumni of the school and every small detail of their lives. He went over what the film production program entails for about 10 minutes, but proceeded to think I wanted to hear about every single success story from the school. After a half hour of not being able to get a word in edgewise, he suddenly stopped and asked if he could call me back because he ‘forgot’ he had to talk to his boss. Fifteen minutes later I get a call back and he proceeds to tell me that he was just reprimanding a student. And then he picked up where he left off and droned on for the next hour about things I do not need to know.
The representative later attempted to discredit other notable film programs with false statistics, attempted to devalue cinema studies with a ‘who wants to study such a silly thing’ attitude (I didn’t mention I am actually very interested in cinema studies), made racist remarks, sexist remarks, and was generally unprofessional in every second of that phone call. When I mentioned I was still unsure if I was going to apply, the conversation came to an awkward halt and he quickly ended the call.
I have never been so disgusted by a college and how they conduct their employees. Upon further research of the school, I have found out about the class action lawsuit back in 2005 and a myriad of similar disgruntled reviews. I am shocked that such an institution is allowed to exist and I highly recommend my fellow students to look elsewhere.

I’m graduating with my MFA from this school. Both the undergrad program and the MFA are solid. Great faculty that will make sure that your experience is well rounded yet that you develop a critical sense of photography and design. The Jefferson campus is beautiful, great view of the Santa Barbara area.

I’d been interested in Brooks Institute for a long time. They used to have pretty solid reputation as being a top photography school in the country. I wanted to apply for their graduate program straight out of college but it wasn’t until the past year that I got serious about the school and contacted them further.
After talking to a competent admissions representative, I was told I’d be contacted in the following months. Fine, that was great. In the meantime I did my own research into the school and found they had a class action lawsuit a few years back. Apparently they were informing students in print that they could make upwards of $ 150k as a photographer straight out of their programs, when in reality a photographer makes $ 30k or less straight out of school. They willfully misled students and settled out of court for over $ 12 million.
After researching this I decided there was NO WAY I’d go here. No big deal, right? I figured it was a done deal, except I KEEP GETTING MAIL FROM THEM! I got a postcard in the mail asking how I wanted them to contact me further. I clearly wrote on there that I didn’t want to be contacted further and wrote a very long reason why. Not only have I gotten 3 letters since then, I have gotten a phone call as well. I guess they don’t understand the saying, «Thanks, but no thanks.»
This institution basically begs for feedback from potential students, but then ignores the feedback. Big fat FAIL.