"Reasonable" is relative. Tuition at U.S. "public" universities is still around $10k per year, even if you're in-state:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/24/tuition-at-public-universiti...

that's indeed not reasonable. who can spend 10k in a year???

Who said anything about affording it? You can just pay interest on it for the rest of your life. /s

The "real median household income" in the US is $76k [1]. This means that $10k a year for university is far from being unreasonable considering that a family has 18+ years to save for it if they decide to do so. That's $185 a month (3% of income), ignoring inflation and interest rates, to get $40k in the bank on the day your child turns 18.

It is therefore not a question of affordability but a question of priority for most families. If they cannot set aside that much money it is, bluntly, because they chose to spend their money differently.

Edit: Apparently the average price paid for a new car in the US is $37k [2]... So basically the same as the average price of a 4 year degree in-state. People make their choice.

[1] https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-average-income-in-usa-fam...

[2] https://www.boston.com/cars/car-news/2019/06/09/average-new-...

Seeing as 40% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency, I highly doubt the average American family has a surplus $185 each month just sitting around.

Plus, what do you do if you have 4 kids? $200ish might be ok, but you don’t want to give only your eldest a university degree.

The $76k figure is median across all US households, I’d be more interested in the median amongst those aged 25-45, which is basically the ages you’d be saving for university (and even then you have to take into account that your income at the start of that range is not going to be what it is at the end).

The majority of those people don't have that money because of their spending habits, not because they cannot afford it.