The Economics of Writing

"MFA programs today serve less as hotbeds of fierce stylistic inculcation, or finishing workshops for almost-ready writers (in the way of, say, Iowa in the '70s) and more as ingenious partial solutions to an eminent American problem: how to extend our already protracted adolescence past 22 towards 30, in order to cope with an oversupplied labor market."

Chad Harbach over at Slate, via N + 1, on the divide between MFA programs and the New York publishing industry.