I graduated from Columbia College in 2014. Everything about the overcrowding of dorms, classrooms, dining halls, libraries and especially the gym made my underg

I graduated from Columbia College in 2014. Everything about the overcrowding of dorms, classrooms, dining halls, libraries and especially the gym made my undergrad experience far more painful than it should have been. There was, strictly speaking, enough space. But the space was often low quality: dark, windowless hallways; dorm rooms in old high rises whose windows faced inner air shafts rather than the street. It was comical. I always assumed it was just a New York problem. But as this article explains, the actual problem is investment in the campus. There would be absolutely no problem academically or culturally with Columbia expanding (doubling, tripling?) undergrad enrollment (obviously this assumes they could find enough new teachers--huge assumption of course). It's already so big you will go through your four years and never meet most of your classmates. What is there to lose? I don't think Columbia is as worried about prestige or exclusivity as peer schools. What they're worried about is placing as many graduates as possible in high paying jobs in Wall Street and Silicon Valley. As they rightfully should be. I don't think this goal would be harmed by raising enrollment, if the commensurate investments were made. All of that being said, I personally think the ideal college is something like a Deep Springs, with a low double digit enrollment of students living and learning together in the middle of nowhere and spending a large amount of their time not just studying but working. If I could wave a wand and dissolve the Ivy League and replace it with 1000 Deeps Springs scattered across the rural Northeast, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But universities are big businesses (someone once said "hedge funds with schools attached") so this will most likely never happen.