A networking class and a poetry class have few expenses in terms of equipment. The main expense is faculty salaries if you take a look at the budget(and my state is cutting budgets so people have scrutinized them). My point is not to argue who is favored and I have no grudge against the liberal arts or the sciences. I only point to the equal tuition and salaries to show how completely isolated the system is from anything like free-market forces and to suggest that this equality is far more likely to be caused by political and social forces.
it seems to me that a poetry class has close to $0 in expenses, and low faculty salaries since English grad students & post-docs are a dime a dozen, while a Cisco networking class involves at least as well paid faculty salaries, and a great deal of equipment - thousands and thousands of dollars worth. (The Cisco hardware itself, none of which comes cheap, basic networking setup, a few dozen computers for the students to use, software licensing fees, etc.)
