Lights, camera, budget: Navigating the financial realities behind Dodge College

After ranking fourth place in The Hollywood Reporter’s list of top film schools, Dodge College of Film and Media Arts continues to be recognized as one of the best in the country. Along with this prestigious honor, Dodge has increased its stardom by having Master Classes containing famous celebrities such as Daniel Craig, Selena Gomez and Colman Domingo. 

The budget deficit certainly sparked controversies among students and parents, trying to decipher what the university is actively investing its financial resources in. However, due to the uproar of attention due to the highly publicized Master Classes, there has also been recent speculation about Dodge’s budget and whether or not it is going where it is needed. 

To start, Dean of Dodge Stephen Galloway, dispelled the belief that Master Classes cost the school a lot of money. He said that in fact, the Chapman Master Classes do not cost the school anything since the guests come willingly.

“All Master Classes are free of charge and the dinners that occur with students are all funded by external donors,” Galloway said. 

When asked more directly about the Dodge budget and how funding is dispersed within the school however, Galloway directed the questions to the Office of the Provost. 

“As a practice, we don’t share unit-level budgets but, annually, we do publish consolidated audited financial statements, which are accessible to the public,” Norma Bouchard, executive vice president and provost, said. 

However, when asked about the donor contributions, Bouchard claimed that the Provost’s Office cared deeply about upholding the privacy and rights of their donors and continuously abided by the principles outlined in the Donor Bill of Rights. 

“In terms of financial operations, we have developed and (followed) comprehensive fiscal policies that govern the allocation and expenditure of funds across all departments, including Dodge College,” Bouchard said. 

Additionally, Dodge College recently made the effective decision of changing the film production and screenwriting majors, and merged the television writing and production and film production majors into one. When asked if the decision was made in order to reduce the budget for the majors, Galloway responded that it was a decision that best-equipped students for their future. 

“We made a decision four years ago that the industry no longer has separate TV and film businesses so we cannot be teaching them as separate things. How do we teach students to not start thinking about these things as separate but rather to think if I have an idea what format is going to be best for it?” Galloway said. “We did not cut the TV program, we merged it into the rest of the film major so all of these classes are still being taught, but now you get to pick and do all of the above.”

The productions for the television writing and production major used to receive $15,000 dollars for each of the two pilots created, which ended this year. The short-form senior project received $2,000 per project, for five to six projects per class, yet was changed this year to $2,500.  

Other than changing the TV program, there have also been recent revisions to the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program.  

The Dodge faculty decided to revise the MFA program, and instead of it being a two- or three-year program, combined it entirely making it a two-year program. This decision was made in order to make it cheaper for students, allowing them to save $50,000 in tuition each year. 

When asked about any future changes or additions to Dodge’s majors, Galloway said that there will be a new Virtual Production Studio opening in 2026 along with a new faculty member. 

“We are actively looking at how we can incorporate (artificial intelligence) AI into everything. We set up a task force to help organize how we can help students use this new tool. When we open the Virtual Production Studio, we are hiring a new faculty to help spearhead the incorporation of AI within our productions,” Galloway said. 

For their senior thesis project, each student at Dodge in the film and television production major receives $1,000 for production. In addition to that, each individual student is required to fundraise in order to receive more funding. Yet, Moira Wu, a senior creative writing major and production design minor, said she is concerned regarding the lack of attention students may experience with faculty.

“Every minor thing is organized by the students, the school doesn’t necessarily help with that. Sometimes it is crazy that kids are driving massive U-Hauls or doing overnight shoots. It’s an overall safe situation but there have been a few instances where it hasn’t been and the school doesn’t help with that,” Wu said. 

Additionally, many Dodge students face exceeding pressures and expectations to have superior projects, further creating a desire to receive more funding than is given by the university. 

“There is this pressure to have the best project, and students are investing their own money in order to upgrade their materials. This massive wealth disparity exists in Dodge because some students have the means to resources and materials that others simply don’t, which essentially can make a project better and stand out,” Wu said. 

Not only is there intense pressure to invest more in order to create better projects, but there has also been a conversation among students in terms of what Dodge’s budget is actually going towards. 

“Dodge heavily prioritizes some majors over others and in my case, the budget for documentary (majors) is lower than for others,” said Siena Chacon, senior documentary and film major. Similarly, the animation and visual effects students get lower funds than others. 

Chacon stated that within her major, documentaries receive $1,000 total from the school per student, but can fundraise more.

Despite efforts to uncover Dodge’s precise budget and how it allocates its funds, the overall reluctance met by faculty and staff to provide full transparency made it challenging to determine exact figures.

It is clear that due to the film school’s popularized efforts, it does receive much of its funding from investors in order to successfully sustain its operations. Yet how much exactly, is unknown.