[quote=@kalanggam]
Maybe it's considered more like a private Ivy League school - difficult admissions process, requiring outstanding extracurricular activities/achievements or strong SAT/ACT/equivalent scores. It's divided a College of Theurgical and Thaumaturgical Arts which has additional requirements to get into (like how one might have to audition to get into a performing arts school, or need an impressive project on their resume to get into a technical institute) and has interdisciplinary studies within other traditional colleges, which were gradually incorporated in the 1800s/1900s as firearms industrialized, becoming more deadly and gaining equal, if not greater, footing against magic.
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On the contrary, I was thinking this was like a step down from a state college. Like, it's old and historic, and certainly capable. But in terms of prestige? This is some kid's safety school. 

Like, sure, there's a graveyard where every dean has been buried since the school opened. And maybe the dead deans serve as a ghost council that advises the current dean. But at Yale, the dean is an [i]actual vampire[/i], so I mean it's kinda lame when you think about it. 

It also definitely has more mundane curriculums. It's definitely worth noting that magic isn't a monolithic field. Like, one person might go to Sanctuary Hill University for eight years to learn medical magic, and another is there for two to get a certificate to use kinetic magic on a construction site. 

[quote=@kalanggam]
For the magic system, I think it makes sense for nothing to happen if you don't have enough materials - like in chemistry, when you don't have enough reagent for a reaction to continue. If you do something wrong, your magic can backfire, sometimes in improbable or bizarre ways, perhaps with even greater force than what your initial input was. A simple prank hex could become a harsh curse.

Maybe magic, like life, is just borrowed energy - as such no spell can last forever, and at some point it must decay and return its energy to nature. A magical contract can fade if it isn't "fed." Everyday enchantments need some kind of fuel to keep going - there are a variety of associated costs or sacrifices with them, but there's [i]always[/i] a price to be paid, even if that price is trivial, silly (perhaps whimsical, even), or embraced with enthusiasm.
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I definitely think you're on the money about cost, although I don't know that we want to plan too much about magic. My idea here is for the magic and fantastical elements to be a little like window dressing for a college town slice of life. 

I like the idea of keeping the process of doing magic deliberately vague, since it's a tool for the narrative, and not the focus of it. But there's definitely a need to define some general rules and boundaries. 

Like you say, any spell has a cost, and the cost must be paid for the spell to remain in effect. By the same token, I think we can hold with "equivalent exchange" as described in Fullmetal Alchemist. 

Ritual fires burn without smoke, and don't give off heat, because the fuel isn't being expended for the fire, but for the spell. Cold spots are a telltale sign that magic has been done, because spells suck heat out of the air. Particularly vigorous spellcasting can create enough cold spots to make warmer air rush in, causing gusts of wind, even indoors. 

Magic is prescriptive. You have to write a spell, and lay out its elements to describe your desired effect. It's kind of like programming in a way. You don't raise your hand and cast a fireball, you arrange the formulae to [i]describe[/i] your fireball, and hope that you didn't mess up the scale or intensity. Magic requires preparation.