A conversation with Tamar Hodos (University of Bristol) on how the application of market logic to humanities research and teaching is driving up tuition costs for students and their families, making good academic positions scarcer, and eroding the institution of tenure, which protects the integrity of research and teaching. In this environment, smaller academic fields face the prospect of extinction. Our focus is on public universities in the US and UK and we discuss funding structures and the underlying logic of our administrative practices.