There is teaching and training. If they have a German lit prof who has published nothing for years, has no research students, no enrollment and the justification for keeping them is "learning German is useful" - then it makes sense to close the dept, buy some language tapes for the library and pay some German grad students to help. Rather than fire 10% of the post-docs in semi-conductor physics because you are making "across the board' cuts.
In europe where every city has a university this is easier and going to a particular university because of a particular course is more common. There are probably only 4-6 veterinary/dentistry ugrad programs in a country and perhaps half the places will have a medical school.
It's different in the US with in-state tuition, but at some point it is cheaper for the state to just say we aren't teaching Oceanography at U of Iowa - here is a scholarship to UCSD to cover the difference in tuition.
You can't ask questions of tapes, nor can you ask for extra help from said tapes the same way you can with an actual teacher. A tape base program can't tell you when you are mispronouncing, nor can it detect the areas you are confused in. There are benefits from having someone knowledgable around to teach.
In europe where every city has a university this is easier and going to a particular university because of a particular course is more common. There are probably only 4-6 veterinary/dentistry ugrad programs in a country and perhaps half the places will have a medical school.
It's different in the US with in-state tuition, but at some point it is cheaper for the state to just say we aren't teaching Oceanography at U of Iowa - here is a scholarship to UCSD to cover the difference in tuition.