Whenever someone at a university argues for the need to concentrate on boosting net revenues, you can pretty much count on large numbers of academic staff getting together to decry the move. They’ll brandish various Newman-esque (the Cardinal, not the Seinfeld character) arguments about how money corrupts the academy, how it betrays scholarship, etc., etc. And more often than not, the people brandishing these arguments will be from the Arts faculties.

Outside observers usually assume that the Arts professors are hiding behind philosophical arguments in order to protect themselves. This is because many assume that in a shift to a more revenue-boosting system, Arts will be left behind and others will profit. Who knows, Arts professors themselves may believe this. But it’s 100% wrong: in pretty much every university in the world, Arts disciplines are money-spinners.

The reason for this is simple: compared to other courses, they are cheap and efficient. Ever wonder why the world over (apart from a few exceptions in the U.S.) private universities shy away from Sciences and Engineering? Because they’re brutally expensive and don’t cover their costs. Conversely, it’s easier to increase the size of Arts classes and hence the “profit” of a given course. There are also a lot more underemployed Arts PhDs than there are underemployed Engineering PhDs, meaning there’s a nice reserve army of cheap sessional labour available for use (though the presence of strong staff unions can make this more difficult).

The problem here is a confusion between sources of prestige and sources of revenue. Universities crave prestige, and so pursue it the way private-sector companies pursue profit. But that doesn’t mean the two are equivalent. Prestige, in fact, is in some ways a form of conspicuous consumption; the prestigious institutions are the ones rich enough to support research and staff that can lose money at a spectacular rate. Less prestigious institutions worry more just about keeping the lights on and the staff paid – hence, they tend to have lots of Arts, Social Science and Business programs which can cross-subsidize the rest of the university.

The confusion arises because universities conduct their cross-subsidies in the dark. A more open budgeting process, which shows costs and revenues across university units would make the crucial funding role of Arts programs more obvious. Maybe embarrassingly so.

Far from rejecting dollars and cents arguments, Arts professors would do well to embrace them. If they’re the ones whose labours allow the university to function, they should get at least get the credit – if not a little bit of extra money, too.