<p>I’m not certain exactly what Modadunn is objecting to. Is it
– California dealing with its huge deficit by imposing cuts on the CSUs?
– the tenure system in higher education that makes it impossible to cut senior faculty in response to changes in student demand?
– the rule that only full-time students can receive financial aid?
– the notion that a university should offer something other than pre-med courses?</p>
<p>It’s obvious that the situation described in the article is horrible. What’s not so obvious is what to do about it. No one ever said, “Let’s cut hard science classes so we can offer more jazz appreciation classes.”</p>
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<p>That one’s easy. Once you are offering a bio lecture class, you can add students up to the capacity of the largest available lecture hall at a trivial marginal cost per student. The marginal cost of additional lab sections, however, is enormous, and start with the fact that they are probably using every available minute of lab time already, so more sections would require more labs and equipment, as well as TAs.</p>