Sorry for not seeing this before! To the first part of your question: You're absolutely correct, good humanities PhD programs typically admit only 10-15 studen

Sorry for not seeing this before! To the first part of your question: You're absolutely correct, good humanities PhD programs typically admit only 10-15 students per year, all of them fully funded. My question about your friend would be what program was he in (schools in themselves aren't indicative of much)? It sounds like it might be a niche program. I'd be stunned if an Ivy had unfunded PhDs in English, History, Philosophy, etc. The thing about humanities programs is that they're funded de facto because graduate students do most of the teaching. If you look at the class schedule for a given term, for example, you're likely to see more basic writing classes than all other English classes combined (or math classes, or...). This is because writing is the only class in the US system that virtually every college student will have to take. The result is ample funding for humanities PhDs and, in many cases, MAs. Don't get me wrong, though. Humanities PhDs face a whole host of other problems later on, like poor job prospects, mediocre pay, and politicking like you thought only existed in the Dune novels!