From what I understand, a top-notch professor of philosophy at a first-tier university will teach 1-2 classes per semester to 300ish students per class for whic

From what I understand, a top-notch professor of philosophy at a first-tier university will teach 1-2 classes per semester to 300ish students per class for which they will earn no more than 300k per year ( although typically 3-6x less ). This works out to roughly $250 per student per semester. It's difficult to price the work of T.As as they are often students themselves, but assuming each student requires an average of 2 hours per week of dedicated grading/tutoring time, then at $20/hr the total cost of providing a first tier class should be $730 dollars. This number is roughly 1/3rd to 1/2 the cost of a class at a community college, 1/6th of the effective cost per class for UMass Amherst, and roughly 1/10th the effective price per class of MIT. I can assure you that the lecturer at your community college is not making 300k either. But this calculation does show that most of the tuition costs do not end up in the hands of the teaching staff, and that providing a first rate education could be done for an order of magnitude lower cost than current first tier universities charge. Or hell, offer professors 1 million per year and still charge 1/3rd the price of MIT.