The Strathmore Strangler
First of all Jerome is the actual worst. It's what draws Bardo, Audrey, Jonah, and Professor Sandiford to him. His introduction to Audrey's father is her lashing out towards him by dragging the worst student and flaunting him. What he interprets as her recognizing the pureness of his heart for her is in fact her recognition at his failed attempt to mimic those emotions. All Jerome has in him as an artist is to style himself in service to others. It's why he continues drawing during breaks, and why his self-portrait was mechanical. There was no hidden truth that he could convey or unearth. The Professor tried to brace him with the length it would take him to reach even that point, but all Jerome knows is how to mimic and present other peoples truth. He also tries to seduce Jerome, because like Jerome's own parents he mistakes his emptiness as a mask in place while dealing with a confused sexuality.
That is why Bardo takes such an interest in him. He sees Strathmore as his renewable resource of both pretentious worthless students to mock, camouflage to blend in with while he maintains his cliche appearance, and as maintenance for his truth and art. He has his eyes on all the successful students, and staging the crime scenes and later making the paintings are his truth. He finds the beauty in culling the talented and the hopeful who finally are having everything line up for them. And with his eye for talent he recognized Jerome as the no talent douchebag that he is. That's why he introduces Jerome to Jimmy, that is his future and at no point does it even cross Jerome's mind that he as a person is the problem. All the rage about not being recognized just because he won't suck the right cocks to get ahead, 0 introspection outside of only a more ruthless cold-blooded version of himself would have had a chance.
The entire purpose of the Jerome-Jimmy relationship is for Jimmy to be there when Jerome reaches rock bottom and is willing to pass off the painting as his own. He was told he couldn't be authentic, so he presented someone else's all too authentic reality as his own. Bardo's reappearance is to further drive Jerome into despair as he presents "The Great Man"'s artistic truth as his own while fixating over his attachment to Audrey. Jerome refuses to let go of Audrey because he thinks art is about the perfect subject, but he's been Bardo's subject as a condemnation of Strathmore. The famous products of the school are *beep* like Marvin Bushmiller who had the good fortune of not meeting Bardo's criteria/refreshment preferences. The infamous products are Richard Natwick and Jerome who are willing to kill themselves/serve wrongful prison sentences in service to notoriety.
Jimmy manages to be of service to further The Great Man's goals, and gets his wish for someone to kill him in the process. Jerome only gets recognition for the paintings after people think they authentically came from a killer since otherwise his classmates rightfully saw through his attempt at passing off someone else's truth as his own again. Bardo gets his paintings hung in D'Annunzio's while Strathmore falls over itself defending and promoting the rest of Jerome's garbage work. Jerome gets the fame and fortune from his substandard work and spends the rest of his life painting Audrey over and over again as if the next painting will surely be the one that actually gets her to fall in love with him, at which point he'll gladly recant his confession and promptly lose his virginity to her. Until then he'll fantasize her in jail with him, with his lips firmly planted on the visiting glass and hers being always just out of reach both to him and to the glass.