&gt; The Mathematics Department uses its privileged role in providing service teaching for undergraduates in all the sciences and social sciences to justify its size and all the trappings that go with that like funding and office space.<p>The above is a very important point and deserves attention in its own right.  What it means is that because the requirements for graduation in a particular liberal arts major include several math courses, this gets the math department lots of headcount which translates to budget.<p>The key lesson for students is to try to avoid those &quot;cattle car&quot; classes with tons of students competing to meet a requirement that they are not interested in learning about.