There are $n$ students in a class, and they must be divided into, say, $k$ groups. Each student ranks the other students in order of preference of working together. Is there a way to generally optimize student happiness (where happiness is based on working with preferred teammates). We could assume for simplicity that happiness is correlated in a simple (say linear) way with preference rank of group members.
When will there be a unique optimal grouping?
What if the happiness is not linearly correlated to preference rank?