To be fair, yes, the makeup of my coursemates will naturally affect that. Mrs Lyceum thinks its also because I'm too hard on/expect to much of my coursemates academically. This is unfair, I do not expect too much, I just get (rationally) annoyed that you get privileged little ****s who have had all these opportunities thrown at them, often from 11+ and then think its funny/acceptable to pursue a post-graduate degree in the Classics without Greek, for example. Its not acceptable, its lazy and it reflects badly both on said person and the rest of us studying at x department.
I've also said, it is apparently racist, but we need to seriously re-examine how we rate Classicists coming here from French and German and Scandinavian unis. Yes, people mock the nationalism in places like Greece and even, at times, Italy, but whatever their theoretical and contextual issues I've never met a Greek or an Italian Classicist who didn't know two languages well. The discipline would be much, much, much, better if UK unis like Oxford and Cambridge where more happy to co-opt these Mediterranean students. Obviously this is about Classics. And wow, that turned out to be massive.
Aeschylus you're right, it is a problem with funding. The mad thing is you can literally see how some disciplines in some universities are ****ing up their patrimony by bad decisions too, so its not all at the feet of the government/university/wider society.