Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is small class size a good thing? Anecdotally, you get better class material and TA staff in larger lectures. Why aren't Universities able to innovate here?
My uncle was a math teacher in Brazil - mostly test-prep course schools for university exams, later he opened some of his own private schools. He used to say two things: that he has estimated to have taught at least 100 thousand people in his life (seems just crazy boasting, but feasible when you are working in 5-8 different schools per semester and each class has 100-250 people) and that a teacher is always teaching…
Where this matters is in something like a lab or music practicum where the communication between instructor and students is the class. But I can tell you from experience that the variance among different years of students in a single university is large enough to disprove your uncle's point. I had one class that could have been confused for graduate students. Yet another might as well been sent by the Trump administration with the goal of destroying the institution of ear training.