The fact is that everything in a University from the softer Social Sciences (like History) through to the softest of the soft Humanities (like Creative Writing) serve one function only. They are for branding. They give prestige to the University, which is to say, to the Trustees and deep-pocketed alumni/ae. In a nutshell, the hard sciences bring in hard money: they bring in real capital. The soft sciences and humanities bring in cultural capital. Trustees are businessmen (sic) who live in the world of real capital but enjoy relaxing in the world of symbolic or cultural capital. They will accrue it and spend it with gusto. But their eye is on the bottom line, and the lowest bottom line is always calculated in real capital.
In short, Universities operate on a vulgar Marxist principle of base and superstructure. The creative writing department is far, far away from the base, which is located firmly in Defense Dept. contracts for missile guidance systems, computerized surveillance devices, and germ warfare.
It is part of the charm of writers that they believe that merely by saying so they will cause the world to value them as highly, and in the same coin, as it values weapons and particle accelerators. That is why we love them.
I think that the sciences are the subjects that bring prestige, while the liberal arts hold most schools together (it’s the bulk of the students). However, there are different equations to this at every school, especially public colleges.
If I recall correctly, at the time I attended Brandeis, of the three departments that brought in the most money, one was a social sciences graduate school (the Heller School)
You’re missing a piece here, which is that universities are not only research institutions but also education institutions, and by far the most useful set of skills that most undergraduate students learn in school are the liberal arts skills of reading, writing, critical thinking, etc.
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Undergraduates also pay tuition, and while this may not bring in enough cash to float the institution, i think it’s safe to say both that the institutions would not be viable without a steady flow of qualified undergraduates and that such a flow would not be forthcoming without good liberal arts.
Universities require reputation, to draw good faculty, students, grants… and even to tempt alumni to give money.
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Alumni donations are the biggest source of funds for the endowment at most universities, I believe, and they’re a lot more likely to give, and to give more, the prouder they are of their university’s reputation. It certainly also pays to entice rich alumni to send their children there, because they’ll probably give in the future too.
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The best faculty draw the best grants. They go where they can find good students, and good collaborators. Each department’s reputation helps the other departments. I think it’s really hard to separate them the way this post implies.