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I don't believe it's passion. You could easily study history at the undergraduate level for zero cost. Nevermind reading on your own - if you just showed up on

I don't believe it's passion. You could easily study history at the undergraduate level for zero cost. Nevermind reading on your own - if you just showed up on the first day of class and acted like you are a student nobody would check. You could probably just tell the professors you just wanted to listen. I can't imagine they'd say no. I think very few people do that. I think it's not passion but just a general social pressure towards getting a college degree. On top of that, history, or the humanities, is a pretty easy degree to get. Students who like history more than their options will go there, not from passion, but a desire to get a degree at least cost.

maximus-decimus 5y ago
Obviously if 100% of students were free loaders, they just wouldn't offer the class so it's not a real option. Even then, you wouldn't have the assignment, the dissertations, the feed-back and I doubt the teacher will be as available. A big part of the cost of doing a degree is the opportunity cost of not working anyway. If your university fees are 10k per year (not unrealistic in Canada), but you could be working a 40k/year job instead, the real cost is 50k/year so you would only really be saving 20%... 20% for the privilege of an incomplete experience, no testing to verify you grasp the concepts, no possibility of doing a masters and no diploma to show for it. Roaming classes is like buying a Mitsubishi mirage. Sure, it's a car... but you can have a car that's twice as good for 20% more.