[s3000]

>graduate students would receive a minimum stipend of $34,000 by October 2024—a raise of $13,000

How do those numbers add up? If a degree costs $100K and a graduate student costs $25K per year, then one person can pay a personally tutoring graduate student for four years to acquire all knowledge. If 10 students pool their money, education costs only $10K.

There needs to be some space to meet and there needs to be a budget for professors but another $10K should cover that easily.

What's the obstacle that prevents students and graduate students and even professors from going back to the beginnings? They can organize their own university where the administration works for them.

There is no need to strike if the university has to match the offer of a competent competitor.

>Universities were generally structured along three types, depending on who paid the teachers. The first type was in Bologna, where students hired and paid for the teachers. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_university#Characteri...

[mcguire]

3 semester hours / class, 15 semester hours per semester, 8 semesters (4 years) works out to about 40 different instructors over 4 years.

Don't get me wrong, I really liked Bruce Porter, but I don't think he could replace Bob Mugerauer teaching Contemporary Moral Problems.

[s3000]

If you want to have 40 different instructors, you need 40 times more students. That doesn't change the fundamental economics.

If you want famous professors, you either have to pay more, or create an enticing environment. You still have the option to pay for recordings of their lectures which should be more affordable.

A well-funded university will be better in several dimensions but quality of education and research is entirely within the influence of whoever starts a new university. Nothing else should matter.

[solveit]

See also SMBC making this point a few years ago: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/college-level-mathematics

The problem is that being privately tutored by UC Berkeley faculty is worth much less than a UC Berkeley degree[1], even though you might learn a lot more. And starting a new university from scratch is apparently difficult, although I share your confusion on exactly which part is so difficult, and whether the difficulty could be circumvented by getting a billion or so in private donations, or if it's a case of "no matter how much money you pump into Brown, it'll never become Harvard. Only Harvard can become Harvard".

[1]: Unless you go and make yourself famous for it, which in this case might be quite doable[2]. But the general point that just learning the material without an official piece of paper recognized by the system is often worth significantly less than having the piece of paper.

[2]: And someone should do it and make headlines.