United Airlines is earning some extra revenue selling economy plus tickets on airplanes. Such seats cost roughly 20% more but offer more legroom and early boarding on the airplane. Could public universities offer a similar experience? Imagine if students could pay a tuition premium for the right to be in a smaller class with more Teaching Assistant support. How many students would select this option?
Take my UCLA environmental economics class as an example. Suppose that instead of teaching a 90 person class with 1/2 of a reader that I could teach a 60 person class with a full time teaching assistant (TA). Suppose that each of the 60 students paid an extra $2,000 for such a class. I would be paid the same amount of money to teach the class and the University would collect an extra $120,000. Pay the TA $10,000 for the class and the remaining $110,000 could be used to give 7 students (that the University could select) a full year in-state tuition scholarship of $15,000 each. I would really enjoy teaching this smaller class as I would get to know my students better and I would have better student support by having the TA. I would like the idea that I'm providing 7 scholarships to deserving students by my teaching the "Economy Plus" course. I am one of UCLA's top teachers and I'm proud of that.
Who would lose? There would be "coach" students who wanted to take my premium class but didn't want to pay the extra $2,000 to take it. I could teach my "coach" course (the 90 person course with the 1/2 time reader) every other year to meet their demands. This Economy Plus option would offer a new revenue model that would make teaching at a Public University a more exciting intellectual opportunity. Students who pay the $2,000 would learn more in such classes and would be more likely to be able to receive a letter of recommendation from a Professor who actually knows them.
How much new revenue would "Economy Plus" generate for UCLA each year? There are 5000 Freshman each year at UCLA. Suppose that 10% of them elect to take one Economy Plus class then according to my arithmetic; the annual flow of revenue just collected from Freshman would equal $2000*.1*5000 = 1 million dollars per year ; so with 4 years of students at UCLA at any point in time; this would yield 4 million dollars in new revenue per year for the school. Given UCLA's concerns with income inequality, this $ could be used to provide 4 million/15000 = 266 full in-state scholarships to UCLA each year.
This "Economy Plus" would be voluntary for both students and faculty. Would the "Economy Plus" be an elite set? It would be a mixture of richer students and students who really want to take a smaller class with a professor such as me. They are voting with their wallet. Right now UCLA does not permit such markets and everyone is worse off because of this.