https://www.rit.edu/admissions/aid/costs#2018-2019-estimated...

Please don't phrase it that way. College was free or nearly free in many parts of the country, especially California before Reagan removed funding. From what I can tell, the push towards private sector funding has only made college more expensive.

College used to be viewed as a public good in America, which means that an educated populace contributed more to society than the cost of its education (which is self-evidently true). In the 80s, republicans made the argument that it was unfair for non-attendees to subsidies attendees (which I agree with upon shallow inspection). This backfired (as predicted by democrats) by creating profit opportunities where none previously existed. So we ended up where we are today, with ballooning debt loads and artificial scarcity in college availability but only marginally more students attending.

What we should have done instead was adjust public education from k-12 to k-16 to compete with the rest of the world. We should have aimed for full attendance and built the campus infrastructure needed to accomplish that.

I think this can still be done, but it starts with getting everyone on the same page. Especially in STEM fields, so that we can provide the innovation needed to get back to providing full educations in liberal arts. That will prepare us for the coming automation age post-2040 where the remaining work available is in humanities (like on Star Trek).

This only applies to retail buyers; governments and corporate sponsors pay the full fare.