In the past year, the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) has touted its Pathways to Practice initiative as a means to increase diversity and access to architecture licenses among lower-income individuals and groups that historically have experienced discrimination. The measure would enable architects to become licensed without a degree from an accredited architecture school. Indeed, NCARB has recently been on somewhat of a promotional tour with the initiative, calling attention to the option in 17 states, including New York and California, and advocating for the possibility within other jurisdictions.
According to NCARB, Pathways aims to diversify and broaden access to the profession without sacrificing standards or diminishing the formative role that education plays in the field for most practitioners. Instead, it focuses on “individuals who don’t have the means or opportunity to attend 5+ years of college, or whose approaches to learning and application of skills do not fit into a traditional accredited education path,” according to press materials.
In New York State, bypassing a college degree has long been a pathway for getting licensed, based on Title 8, Article 147, Section 7304 of the state’s Education Law, which stipulates that 12 years of professional practice can be used to satisfy the combined college and experience requirements of licensure. (One complete year of college can also be accepted in lieu of every two years of experience, as well as 10 years of professional practice outside the state.) Nationwide, around 15% of architects—more than 18,000 in total—went through a nontraditional pathway to obtain a license, according to NCARB.
Last November, as part of the organization’s outreach, NCARB President Jon Baker published an op-ed in The Architect’s Newspaper (AN) discussing the Pathways to Practice initiative. Baker started working as an architectural draftsman out of high school in 1973, designing factory-built modular homes in a small office in San Bernardino, California. He believes strongly that these alternatives are a positive option, opening up access for people without the means to afford higher education. He cites his modest background and the difficulty of working and paying for school simultaneously. Baker eventually enrolled at California Polytechnic State University for one-and-a-half years before giving up and returning to practice without a degree.
“Anybody who wants to be an architect should be able to find a pathway that’s accessible to them,” Baker said in an interview for Oculus. “If we open up these pathways, a lot of underrepresented individuals and groups will be able to find a way into the profession and help us broaden the perspective of what we do and how we do it.”
The November essay set off a lively debate and spurred a series of rebuttals in AN. Among them, Michael J. Monti, executive director of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), and Mo Zell, ACSA president and interim dean of art and architecture at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, jointly authored a letter to AN defending the importance of architecture school. Monti and Zell argued that rather than produce greater inclusion, a large increase in the number of architects who hadn’t attended an accredited university would, over time, “create two classes of architectural professionals and undercut the relevance of the profession to society.” Instead of offering greater access for groups who have been historically discriminated against, they contended, members of these groups would be less likely to be hired without a degree, or would ultimately obtain lower salaries, diminishing their opportunities relative to others in the field. “Although that pathway is open to all people regardless of race, gender,or country of origin, it does not account for the longstanding history of harm and disenfranchisement that women and people of color still experience today,” they reminded readers.
Baker says NCARB is not trying to diminish the importance of architectural education, but recognizing that there are real income-based limitations to getting into the profession. “This is not meant to dismantle the education system or undermine the degree programs in any form or fashion,” he says. “This is just to provide a pathway for individuals who want to be architects but are not able to access those programs because of all the limitations that keep them out. It also recognizes that a lot of students go through very expensive programs and end up with a lot of student debt on top of not being able to get the starting salaries they’d like when they get out of school.” Based on NCARB’s current data, approximately 70% of architects who have pursued a nontraditional path are white and 30% are people of color. For comparison, 19% of architects identify as a person of color. NCARB does not gather data on economic status.
Meanwhile, some educators say the solution to the cost of higher education is to put more money into tuition, particularly for students with race and income barriers. Andrew Chin, dean and associate professor at the Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University School of Architecture & Engineering Technology, cites the fact that 30% of currently practicing Black architects received their degrees from historically Black colleges and universities as evidence that supporting educational access is fundamentally important to diversity within the profession. “If the goal is increasing the number of people of color in the discipline, then this may be a question that educational institutions need to address,” Chin says. “I don’t think the solution is waiving the educational requirement—that isn’t how you make education cheaper.”
Yet alternatives to a six-year accredited degree are being embraced in some measure by many, including AIA New York Chapter President Gregory Switzer. Switzer acknowledges that other options are worth having for many reasons. “Alternative paths are very important for some,” he says. “Obviously, through the traditional route there are so many barriers to access: the financial components, the architectural education process, the licensure process, and the salaries that architects get when they first get out of school. These barriers make it very difficult for aspiring architects to support themselves—and even harder when they also have to take care of themselves and pay for multiple examinations and study.”
A less frequently discussed strategy that NCARB’s Pathways to Practice has encouraged is to take advantage of unaccredited, less-expensive community colleges that offer architecture coursework. But those credits don’t always transfer into university credits or satisfy the requirements of state licensing laws. “The Pathways to Practice initiative is our recommendation to all licensing boards: that they consider how they might update their regulations and statutes and accept within their jurisdiction the idea of multiple pathways, so that candidates who can only afford to go to a four-year school that’s not accredited, or to a community college for two years, can also have a pathway to licensure based on an experience pathway,” says Baker.
But skipping right to practical experience isn’t an easy answer, either, given that many firms are not equipped to mentor young professionals and guide them to licensure. “Many architects don’t land that perfect job that supports them during the licensure process,” says Switzer. “They may be working in architecture firms but not gaining the experience they need to pass that hurdle to get licensed.”
By the same token, many architecture schools don’t equip graduates with the practical skills they need at the end of degree programs. “It would be helpful if schools could broaden and inform the curriculum at four- and five-year universities so the students learn the fundamental basics of practice alongside their focus on design so they have both when they come out of school,” Baker says. “The premise is that someone coming from an accredited school is a better architect than someone not, but there is no evidence of that. In fact, the most talented people I’ve worked with over the years learned the profession in practice, and the people who struggle most in this profession only have education behind them and not a lot of practical experience.”
In that sense, the best way of thinking about the problem of expanding access may be to systematically, directly address equity and inclusion by offering well-rounded educational and practical opportunities at all levels of one’s schooling and career.
STEPHEN ZACKS (“Schools of Thought”) is an advocacy journalist, architecture critic, urbanist, and project organizer based in New York City.
