Taking a College Course: What are You Buying?
Eric Kandel Receiving Nobel Prize There is a private liberal arts college near me. They allow outsiders to audit summer courses (applying the profound wisdom that if there are empty seats, the marginal cost of one more student is zero. Any revenue is pure gain.) I was interested in a course Introduction to Neuroscience . I checked out the course. That got me thinking about the economics of a college course. This college charges students about $4,000 a course. The course is probably taught by a full-time professor, probably an Assistant Professor since it fulfills a liberal arts field requirement. There are no pre-requisites. The prof probably is paid about $8,000 to teach this course. Assuming 20 students in the course, each student is paying $400 to listen to the prof. About 10% of the total cost. What does the other 90% buy you? The main reading is In Search of Memory by Eric Kandel, wh...