School of the Art Institute of Chicago

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is a private art and design school in downtown Chicago, Illinois, founded in 1866 as the Chicago Academy of Design and later established as the teaching school of the Art Institute of Chicago. Its defining structure is that studio degrees are taught beside a large encyclopedic art museum. The campus occupies buildings in the Loop on Michigan Avenue and Columbus Drive, next to Grant Park.

Academic work is organized by studio departments and by graduate programs in art history, visual and critical studies, arts administration, art education, art therapy, writing, designed objects, and interior architecture. The Master of Fine Arts is the main graduate studio degree. Students use museum collections and fabrication shops for print, ceramics, sculpture, film, performance, and digital media.

The school enrolls about 3,500 students, with a large graduate share and a high proportion of international students from many countries. Faculty are practicing artists, designers, and scholars. Alumni include Georgia O'Keeffe, Claes Oldenburg, and Jeff Koons.

Graduate study is built on critiques, studios, and a thesis or exhibition rather than large lecture courses, on a semester calendar. Internal support includes assistantships and fellowships. Students live in central Chicago, with museums, galleries, and arts nonprofits as the working environment.

In the Grad School Navigator directory, School of the Art Institute of Chicago lists 3 graduate programs across 3 subjects, all of them master's programs, with the widest choice in art and education.