Expensive Colleges Preserve Seminar Quality

Small, discussion‑based humanities education requires fixed costs — paying tenured faculty competitive salaries, maintaining libraries and appropriate spaces, and keeping low student‑to‑faculty ratios. Volunteer or pop‑up programs can meet demand but cannot substitute for the institutional infrastructure that enables sustained research, pedagogy, and professional faculty careers. — If true, arguments for drastic tuition cuts or minimalist college models risk hollowing out the very features (seminars, faculty research, small cohorts) that justify higher education’s public and private returns.