&quot;Economies of scale are a thing.&quot;<p>Yes, economies of scale are a thing.  They generally cause average cost per unit of output to decrease, as total output increases.<p>As I said, for the $100k&#x2F;pa cost quoted by the article, a single student could afford to pay for pay+tax+benefits for a 1:1 tutor, 20 hours per week.<p>Given that most university lectures&#x2F;seminars&#x2F;tutorials have a much larger student:teacher ratio, economies of scale should mean universities would achieve a much lower cost of tuition.<p>I get that universities do other things.  I get that they need to build and maintain infrastructure.  I get that they need to subscribe to journals.  But all of that is spread over all of their students.<p>Regarding the example you introduced: The University of Huddersfield has ~20k students.  Its total expenditure is ~120m GBP ($180MM) per year[0].  That&#x27;s about $9k per student per year.  That&#x27;s less than 1&#x2F;10th of the $100k expenditure per student quoted in the original article.<p>[0] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hud.ac.uk&#x2F;media&#x2F;universityofhuddersfield&#x2F;content2013&#x2F;services&#x2F;finance&#x2F;Financial%20Accounts%202013-14.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hud.ac.uk&#x2F;media&#x2F;universityofhuddersfield&#x2F;content2...</a>