A recent analysis conducted by the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project, an organization run out of Indiana University that surveys those who attended arts institutions, found that only about half of the respondents who graduated from arts high schools currently hold a full- or part-time career as an artist. (The project’s data does not distinguish between the visual and performing arts, but approximately 80 percent of high-school respondents were focused on the performing arts.) Of those who pursued a degree post-high school, most did study some form of the arts—but a noteworthy number (almost 25 percent) did not.

Sally Gaskill, the director of SNAAP, isn’t surprised by this breakdown. While most students will go on to “pursue passions,” as she put it, myriad factors lead a substantial portion of the arts-high-school population to turn away from their practice post-graduation. College choice, in general, is an inexact science, with students being influenced by everything from the location of a school to whether it was raining when they visited the campus; it’s hard to generalize or pin down why students choose the schools they do.

According to Jillian Kinzie, the associate director of the Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research and the co-author of the report “Fifty Years of College Choice,” the three most pressing factors in a student’s decision are those of practicality (can they study what they want where they want?), personal development (can they go far away from home and be independent?), and economics (can they afford the places they’re looking?).

Of those, the economics issue is especially relevant to those who graduate from performing-arts high schools, particularly those in urban areas like the one I attended. Located in cities such as Los Angeles (Los Angeles County High School of the Arts), Baltimore (Baltimore School for the Arts), and Dallas (Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts), they’re the most common type of arts high schools in the country. And as public, metropolitan institutions, their student populations are very different from those at private arts boarding schools such as Interlochen Arts Academy: The former are far more likely to enroll students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. It’s extremely challenging “for an underprivileged art high-school student to even think about any colleges, much less an arts [college],” Gaskill said.

Even when these low-income students do consider higher education, the idea of pursuing a college degree in the arts is one that might be met with pushback from their parents or guardians, in part because of the field’s reputation as one that lacks a lucrative salary range. And parental support for a student’s interests has a big influence on whether she’ll stick with a certain activity. In the realm of music, a parent’s encouragement has been shown to be one of best predictors of whether a child sticks with a musical instrument. That and the idea that kids tend to pursue things they value and consider themselves good at are “probably the biggest influences for either doing [an arts major] or avoiding it,” said Kenneth Elpus, an associate professor of music education at the University of Maryland. Without that parental support, students are less likely to continue their arts education, even if it did play a large part in their high-school experience.