It’s a cliché that some students come to college for the parties, and then stay for the classes, but to see college only as a course delivery system is risible. Even those who question the overall value of a college education, such as Bryan Caplan, concede that the “signal” of graduating from an elite college is valuable. At their best—and the institutions that survive will have to have a best-level experience—the experience of college students is multiplicative and synergistic: a college is not the sum of the four buildings, but their product.