When Liberal Arts and Sciences Programs Pay the Price,We Must Pay Attention by Anonymous

One of the defining features of a Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) education in the Netherlands is the promise of small classes. At our university college, no class is larger than 28 students, and many advanced courses, especially at levels 2 and 3, are much smaller. Some have six students, others four, and sometimes even three, and the reason lies in the distinction between following a track fully or treating its constituent courses as electives. In theory, these settings have been part of what makes LAS distinctive for a long time now: personal, intensive, and built on meaningful interaction.

However, budget cuts are reshaping how this model is sustained nowadays. In response, management teams have introduced new ways of calculating teaching hours. In turn, this affects the dynamics of class sizes. Broadly speaking, the system now allocates more hours (and thus more pay) to professors teaching large classes, and fewer (and thus less pay) to professors teaching smaller ones. The logic is simple: hours per student. Yet, it is this logic that risks misrepresenting the reality of teaching at a university college.

Teaching is not just a matter of showing up to class: it involves preparing lectures, designing assignments, reading student work, providing feedback, and adapting courses to different levels of ability. Smaller classes do not necessarily mean less work; in fact, they often require more. For instance, six students producing weekly assignments, presentations, and research papers may demand more of a professor than a classroom of 28 students graded on two multiple-choice exams. Thus, class size alone does not capture the structure and intensity of a certain course.

This matters for us as students. To most people’s financial standards, LAS is not cheap. We pay high tuition fees precisely because we expect more than a standard, assembly-line education. We come for interdisciplinarity, close contact with professors, and the chance to be challenged beyond surface-level knowledge. If professors are only compensated to “show up” to class because the management teams don’t look at the structure of the course, but at its students, with little time left for preparation or feedback, the quality of our education inevitably suffers.

Teaching is not just a matter of showing up to class: it involves preparing lectures, designing assignments, reading student work, providing feedback, and adapting courses to different

levels of ability.

To say the least, professors themselves feel the strain. With reduced hours for smaller classes, some have told me they are forced to make difficult choices: either cut down on preparation and feedback or absorb the extra work at personal cost to their time and wellbeing. Neither option is sustainable. A similar logic applies to thesis supervision. Officially, time for reading theses is limited, sometimes to just a few hours. But anyone who has written or is writing a thesis knows that meaningful feedback cannot be rushed. Somehow, researching and writing for months cannot be equated with a 2-hour read-through, firstly because grades will suffer one way or another, and secondly because the feedback will be limited.

At stake here is more than workload. It is also about the values of LAS. The program was built on equality across disciplines, the dialogue of the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Yet, when resources are distributed by attendance numbers alone, certain tracks are favoured while others are devalued. Sciences often attract more students, while humanities courses tend to be smaller. If pay and hours follow that pattern, the message becomes uncomfortably clear: some disciplines are “worth more” than others. This undermines the philosophy of interdisciplinarity that LAS was designed to protect.

Of course, budget cuts are a reality. Resources are limited, and management must make difficult choices. Despite that, how those choices are made matters. A purely numerical approach, hours per student, risks eroding what makes LAS unique in the first place. It shifts the focus from quality to quantity, from education as a process to education as a calculation.

Moreover, there are broader implications too. If professors are pressured to cut corners, or if grading and feedback become increasingly automated to save time, LAS drifts away from its core promise: a human-centred education that treats students as individuals rather than numbers.

A purely numerical approach, hours per student,

risks eroding what makes LAS unique in the first place. It shifts the focus from quality to quantity, from education as a process to education as a calculation.

You must be asking yourself now, what can we, as students, do? At the very least, we must be aware. Although budget cuts and management models may seem like abstract institutional issues, they directly shape our day-to-day experience: the depth of the feedback we receive, the care with which classes are prepared, and the equality of disciplines within our community. Awareness matters because it allows us to ask the right questions and hold on to the values that brought us here.

Teaching is not charity, nor is it a luxury. It is the foundation of our education and the reason we chose this program. If LAS is to remain what it promises to be (small, interdisciplinary, and transformative), it requires more than financial efficiency, it requires decisions that reflect its philosophy. And that philosophy should not be negotiable. Next time you sit in a small class, pause for a moment and think about what it means.