Author: Matt Edwards

Matt Edwards is one of the leading voice teachers for commercial and musical theatre styles in the United States. He is currently associate professor of voice and director of musical theatre at Shenandoah Conservatory of Shenandoah University; artistic director of the Contemporary Commercial Music Vocal Pedagogy Institute; secretary of the Musical Theatre Educator’s Alliance and past secretary of the Pan-American Vocology Association. Edwards’ vocal interests encompass many styles. He has performed numerous roles in plays, musicals and operas with companies including Tri-Cities Opera, Ash Lawn Opera Festival, New Jersey Opera, Atlantic Coast Opera Festival, Bay View Music Festival, the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra, Dayton Philharmonic Pops, Hudson Valley Symphony, the Miami Valley Symphony, Cincinnati Opera Outreach, Lyric Opera Cleveland Outreach, Theatre Lab, KNOW Theatre, and many others. He has also received awards from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Dayton Opera Guild Competition, The National Association of Teachers of Singing, Southern-Tier Opportunity Coalition, the Voice Foundation and the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges. Former and current students have performed on “American Idol,” Broadway, off-Broadway, national and international tours, national television, cruise ships, theme parks, bands touring throughout the world, and as members of the Ten Tenors, the Singing Sergeants, The Broadway Tenors, and the USO Show Troupe. He has written articles for the Journal of Singing, Journal of Voice, VoicePrints, American Music Teacher, The Voice, Southern Theatre, Vocology in Practice, and has been a vocal coach in residence for Voice Council magazine. He has contributed to books including “A Dictionary for the Modern Singer” by Dr. Matthew Hoch, “Vocal Athlete” by Dr. Wendy LeBorgne and Marci Rosenberg, The “Manual of Singing Voice Rehabilitation” by Leda Scearce,“Training Contemporary Commercial Singers” by Dr. Elizabeth Benson, “Get the Callback, 2nd edition” by Jonathan Flom, and the CCM, Sacred Music, Gospel, Folk Music, A Cappella, and Country editions of the “So You Want to Sing” book series. His book “So You Want to Sing Rock ‘N’ Roll?” is published by Rowman and Littlefield Publishing. It was called “an authoritative text on rock ‘n’ roll singing” by Classical Singer magazine, and is the best seller in the “So You Want to Sing” series. In high demand for his presentations and masterclasses on commercial and musical theatre voice, he has presented at the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) National Conference, NATS Summer Workshop, Voice Foundation Annual Symposium Care for the Professional Voice, Acoustical Society of America, Southeastern Theatre Conference, Virginia Theatre Association, Musical Theatre Educators Association, National Center for Voice and Speech, Pan-American Vocology Association, and Carolina Voices; NATS chapters in Toronto, Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, Missouri, Arizona, Oregon, and Texas; universities including Penn State, Florida State, Brigham Young, Wright State, Georgia Southern, Otterbein, Illinois Wesleyan, Ohio Northern, Missouri State, Mary-Hardin Baylor, Texas Women’s, DeSales, Hardin Simmons, Snow College, Westminster Choir College, Lawrence Conservatory, Bårdar Academy (Oslo, Norway), University of Alabama, University of Portland, University of Toronto, University of Northern Colorado, and many others.

Want cheaper tuition? Then don’t encourage schools to build ‘lazy rivers’!

LSU's 'lazy river' is part of an million dollar recreation project paid for by an increase in student fees.

 I came across this story from Fox News and it reminded me of one of the often overlooked contributors to rising tuition costs – when colleges try to attract students by spending money on luxuries. I am an LSU alumni and I have to say I had a great time there. There was always something to do and since New Orleans was only an hour way, if you were bored on the weekend you just hopped in the car for a night on the town. I lived in a cheap apartment on the edge of campus with great roommates and got a great education. What I didn’t get and didn’t need was a luxury swimming pool with a lazy river that spelled out LSU. So why is LSU building one for $85 MILLION DOLLARS? Because student feedback indicated that students wanted more recreation options.

But is that what college is really about? Should students be taking out record breaking amounts of student loans to pay for luxury pools, big screen TVs in the dorm rooms, and fancy fitness facilities? NO. If you are taking out loans, you should be doing so in order to pay for an education from the best faculty that money can buy.

There is a misconception that faculty are the cause for the rise in tuition, but at most universities that is not the case. According to a survey by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, the average Assistant Professor in the visual and performing arts has a salary of $56,692. At full professor rank, the average pay is $85,634. For professionals with doctorate degrees, that is hardly an excessive salary.

So where is the money going? Well in 2013, American universities spend $10.9 billion on construction projects. So it would seem a lot of it is going to providing luxuries for students. Researchers who wrote a paper titled “Country Club as College” found that lower achieving students desired more luxury amenities than higher achieving students. The problem is the higher achieving students are usually on large academic scholarships while the lower achieving students are not and have to pay more out of pocket, often in the form of loans.

So what can be done about this? Well at places like LSU where the construction is already underway – nothing. But if students and parents want to see an end to skyrocketing tuition, they need to stop asking for luxuries that are unrelated to education. If you are on a school tour, don’t complain that the dorms look like dorms and not four star hotel rooms. If you are in the dining hall, do not put comments in the survey box requesting lobster or steak on the weekends. Otherwise, university administrators are going to continue to give students what they want and when they do, tuition will continue to rise.

~Matt