<p>This isn’t about money. Harvard has, to put it mildly, plenty of money, and it could easily attract more highly qualified instructors to teach introductory classes.</p>
<p>But then most of the kids wouldn’t get to have lecture with the #1 guy in the department. When I was an undergrad, Dudley Herschbach (Nobel laureate) taught Chem 5 – the most basic introductory course for those with no prior exposure to chemistry. There would have been a mutiny if 1/5th of the interested students got to have lecture with him and 4/5ths got “instructors.” Every student in a large class already gets to have small discsussions/labs with a qualified, but less eminent, instructor – that’s what section is for. But everyone also gets to have lecture with the person considered the absolute best.</p>
<p>You can see this effect in NON-required courses. Justice, Psychology of Happiness, Sex, Ec 10 and the rest of the biggest classes at Harvard are either not required for any major, or they are only required for a fraction of the students who take them. They are huge because they are popular, and they are popular because the professors are well-loved superstars. If you broke down the Justice course into a bunch of 50-student lecture groups, only one of which was taught by Michael Sandel, most of the students would drop it.</p>
<p>“I have a suspicion that students who were A students in high school freak when they get a C or B in college”</p>
<p>Yes, they do. And the Harvard freshman class is made up of ~100% A students.</p>