There is a place for encouraging students to go to art school... the catch is that they need to have obvious signs of world class talent.
Maybe, but you have to be careful with this kind of thinking. I know a couple of really gifted guys with degrees from Berklee College of Music who still have student loans to pay off. The truth is, world class musicians working good jobs still take considerable time to pay off loans that big. It's not a high-paying profession.
There's a category of artist, the superstars, who don't have these sorts of problems but its population is vanishingly small.
On the other hand, the guys I'm talking about don't really question the value of their excellent education. It's not all about money for some people, which is good. It's just wise to know what you're getting into.
An objective criteria might be to pursue art if you don't have to pay tuition. I knew someone who decided as a teenager that he wouldn't pursue music unless he didn't have to pay for it. This worked out mostly - his undergrad and graduate programs were full ride scholarships, he really was extraordinary. Except when he was auditioning for orchestras at the end, he spent almost a year unemployed and flying back and forth across the country on his own dime. He had to buy a separate seat for his instrument because he couldn't trust it being checked as baggage. He was incredibly good, but he told me that 80% of the people who auditioned were just as good, and past a certain level of ability, it was basically random who got picked. So this guy was perhaps "world class," but even at the end it was a dicey period where he was not sure he could be employed.
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/david-datuna-banana-art-ba...
Pixar, Riot Games, Marvel, and XKCD would not exist without full time artists (even those with above-average-but-not-world-class talent).
Art school can actually be a great investment if you want to do creative work for hire.
If you are a creative director, you have people working under you.
How do you all get to be creative directors?
You'd be surprised how many high-level creative positions are available, especially in games. It's kinda political to get a position of course. But being an artist is pretty sustainable if you're willing to put out work for a studio of that sort.
IME, the people that wanted to go to art school, weren't interested in what is taught design school, and vice versa.