In short, if your goal in life is to make art, use the money you'd waste on SVA to buy some art history books, learn some history and theory, and just engage in your own practice.  I CANNOT EXPRESS ENOUGH HOW MUCH I MEAN THIS!  I WISH I HAD SOMEONE TELL ME THIS YEARS AGO!!  SVA IS A TOTAL WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY, but I will explain...

Wasting thousands, to get a completely useless degree is insanity, that I had the unfortunate idea of participating in myself.  You go to this school, deal with all the depressed rich kids(it's hard having money and sitting around making crummy paintings), arrogant (think they are famous) teachers who are in reality failures, shop techs in all departments are also failed artists with attitudes, humanities classes that are below high school level etc.  all for a degree that is completely and utterly useless. 

Try going to interviews, in the real world, to get yourself any kind of gainful employment with this degree, best of luck.  No one is willing to help graduates either, everything in the environment revolves around a pseudo-wealthy group of children who do each other favors and tell each other how great they all are.  Think I'm full of it?  Go to the school and see it yourself.

I just saved you four years of learning all this the hard way, the EXPENSIVE way.

Years later I've repaired my life, and my mind from the damage of the school and the people who work and attend it, and I have actually made myself a mufti-millionaire(no joke ha ha) though completely and totally unrelated to the school or anything having to do with it or my education.  I had to rebuild one step at a time, and do it all on my own.

I now make art on my own time, and my own dime, for myself, and do what gives me satisfaction, not for the appearance or approval of vacant people.

If SVA taught me anything, its that the New York art world is an unbelievable mess of very affluent children, doing whatever they can to make their lives seem purposeful, and the majority of it has nothing to do with art, communicating ideas is completely secondary to being the latest and greatest nonsense to hit the market.(sidenote: if you are a mid-western or southern hipster, or even just some suburban kid who is the coolest kid at your particular middle of nowhere highschool, SVA is the best place for you to become the dirtiest preachiest most arrogant hipster, and gain that hipster stardom you've always desired.  Seriously, come and move here and then tell people you meet you are “from” Brooklyn, just make sure the people you tell are other hipsters, and not any of us who are actually FROM here.  All you dreams of being a vegan in the hottest band this week, who never showers and protests things that your parents make their money on will come true!  You can act like trash, treat other people badly, and be the coolest kid to hit NYC.  Just be careful, people on the fringes of your gentrification sprawl aren't too friendly to outsiders who drive up rent and cost of living prices, and they will rob you for your ipod and $5000 dollar track bike, but don't worry you can just go buy another.)Sorry for the personal rant, but if you come here, you will see exactly what I'm talking about on your first day.

Avoid at all costs would be my advice, as I said just take a 30k loan and use it to make a film, or a series of paintings, etc.  Do your own thing, promote it if you want people to see it, and you will cut out 4 wasted years of garbage that somehow passes for “education".

Or even better alternative, go to business school, or some kind of educational pursuit that will fund your goals in art.  Much better way to go, and there are a number of successful artists who have done this in the past.