I'm not sure if the spending or funding side is bigger issue, and surely this depends somewhat on the school, but both must be brought in line rather than forcing it onto our future workers.

The one thing we can't do is stop funding because we have pre-decided that it won't lower tuition. It's easy to attach strings to money, let's do that.

> Schools will increase their expenses and tuition to fill loan capacity plus public funding, as they've already been doing.

I'm not sure there is evidence of that at all. Do you have some statistics?

I would start by looking at variance in state funding pre-covid. Reducing funding: increasing tuition to market limits, then cutting expenses. Increasing funding: increasing expenses and increasing tuition to market limits. Tuition has roughly on an 8% track and historical circumstances vary, so pricing and spending reactions aren't immediate.

Here's a high level report showing some of the state funding changes. https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/10-24-1...