TASPers participate solely for the pleasure and rewards of learning with other intelligent, highly motivated students. The TASP offers no grades or college credit. The program seminars are similar to upper-level college classes. The faculty members, who are selected from the country's best institutions, design programs in which students read texts carefully and critically, consider controversial ideas from many sides, and express and analyze ideas clearly in their discussions and writings. The students and professors are responsible for only the TASP seminar, and the student-teacher ratio is lower than ten to one.
Every student receives personal attention from the professors.
Students learn to form, and live responsibly within, an intellectual and social community. Each TASP encourages the students to use the seminar as a foundation for exploring ideas together, and the intellectual life of the program continues well after the seminar ends. TASPers are urged to take advantage of the resources of the college and university communities where the programs are held. Students also attend group meetings and are responsible for planning community activities and discussing questions of self-government. Telluride Association Summer Programs are free.