Getting Medieval on Tuition

Alex Usher:

Here's a great story you may have missed: at the University of Toronto, students have created their own exchanges where they can pay students who are enrolled in a class which is full to drop out, thus opening space for themselves. In other words, a secondary market in class spaces has spontaneously emerged (as markets do).

Most people's reaction to this is either shock/horror (costs to students, more inequality, yadda yada), or mild amusement. But I think it raises some interesting questions: other than administrative convenience, why do we have a single price for all classes in a faculty, anyway?

From time immemorial, until sometime in the nineteenth century, professors actually charged their own tuition with no interference from "the university". They charged whatever the market would bear, which often wasn't very much. But it kept a market discipline on the profession. Professors who couldn't help students pass their exams didn't just get bad teaching reviews - they got less money.

(Just once, when someone talks about how neo-liberalism is eroding the eternal values of the medieval concept of the university, I want them to include guaranteed professorial pay as one of the modern vices that needs to be rejected in favour of its medieval antecedents. Just once. Please.)

Posted by Jim Zellmer at October 5, 2013 12:04 AM
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