budget cuts | Thornfield Hall

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I read Richmond Lattimore’s translation of the Iliad for an English class. The professor was a medievalist whose hobby was Greek literature, and it was unclear whether or not he knew Greek. Certainly, his teaching was uninspired and his observations trite.

And so I enrolled in Greek, and then in Latin, and spent hours, then years, reading the mysterious Aeschylus, the enchanting Homer, witty Catullus, brilliant Virgil, bubbly Ovid, etc., and then I had a master’s degree in classics.

I am awestruck that I made this excellent decision. I could have been another English major (I love English literature), but classical literature is gorgeous, profound, and pertinent, the poetry, plays, and philosophy of ancient civilizations that shaped western culture and literature, and still remain, in some ways, alien and unknowable. Without the universities, we would have been like Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure: Jude teaches himself Greek and Latin in a desolate village, and when he finally makes it to Hardy’s fictitious counterpart of Oxford, the professors decline even to meet him.

The humanities are in jeopardy now. One wonders if future generations will have the pleasure of reading Latin and Greek classics. I do not say this lightly. Several universities and colleges have eliminated classics programs or severely cut department budgets. The University of Chicago is winnowing its classics program and will not accept new Ph.D. students in classics in the 2026-2027 year.

According to Jeffrey E. Shulman in his article, “Cuts to the Liberal Arts Will Backfinre.” in Real Clear Education, “The University of Chicago prides itself on teaching obscure and dead languages. Although most lack their own major or minor, the Classics Department—which offers ancient Greek and Latin—counts 12 enrollees a number insignificant compared to a STEM subject like computer science, with 382 enrollees. Such numbers are typical at other elite universities: Harvard University’s 2024 graduating class included 10 classics majors and 184 computer scientists. “

The numbers were about the same in my day. But then It was a given that the value of classics and other humanities courses was beyond numbers and money.

Let’s hope some powerful people will save classics.

My college education had a profound effect on me. Hilariously, I not only read voraciously for my classes, but I also read books on the syllabuses for other classes. Today Mr. Nemo and I were discussing the fascinating syllabus for a DeFoe to Austen class. I dropped out of the class because the professor was so stuffy that he insisted on arranging us in alphabetical order, which involved much shuffling, stepping on toes, and dropping of books. This was WAY too unhip for me! But the syllabus was terrific.

I loved being a student at an affordable state university.

Like most people, I idealize my college days. It’s always sunny, we’re always sitting on the steps of X Hall reviewing our translation of Catullus while people on the lawn play frisbee with their dogs, we attend a reading by Borges, or we go to Italian movies. It was like the Guermantes’ salon in The Guermantes Way. Only in this context, it was Lucky Jim meets Marcel Proust! But actually, Proust was probably lhanging out with the Ivy League.

But partly because of my nostalgia for those days, I feel ill when I read about new cuts to education.

I live in a red state, so I’m no stranger to budget cuts. Frankly, I don’t think there’s anything left to cut here. The state motto seems to be: if you can’t weld it, cut it! And they’ve fired all the welders, metaphorically speaking.

I worry about the fate of affordable state universities.

The majority of American college students attend state universities and community colleges. Amd those of us who aren’t rich or connected were content to spend four (or six or seven or more) years at the University of V or X, reading Jane Austen and Juvenal, Barthelme and Bronte, O’Connor and Ovid. The Enemies of the People, as I call them, have tried to turn the universities into business schools, but the liberal arts are still (almost) thriving here. And with the help of Pell grants, student loans, part-time jobs, and a teaching assistanship, I received a splendid education. I was a T.A. in graduate school, which paid my tuition, and gave me teaching experience.

But I must add, I could not have afforded to go to a college out-of-state, or to a private college. It took seven years to repay my college loans, which I thought was reasonable. My job didn’t pay very well, so I was living modestly anyway. When I hear about about the massive college debt today, I wonder what mass insanity is driving the “consumer”?

It was generous of Joe Biden to forgive college debt, but I do have a question. Is it smart to attend a fabulously expensive famous university if the debt will bankrupt you? I mean, perhaps the Ivy Leagues colleges are not your best option in that case. Perhaps it’s a bit addictive trying to get into these schools, like gambling at at Monte-Carlo in a James Bond movie. You might hit the jackpot, or you might lose everything. Your acceptance at the five-star hotel of universities might end in financial disaster.

I advise you to compare the credentials of professors at your dream school with the profs’ at state universities. You will discover that many of the professors, and how this is possible, I do not know, but I mean all of my classics professors!, attended Ivy League colleges, Seven Sisters colleges, or Berkeley.

I do believe the university saved my life. I bloomed as a college student. It definitely wasn’t job training! That’s not what I was looking for. It was a joyful experience.