I once read an essay by an administrator of a small college who was talking about some incentives for high tuition costs. The biggest for his school was that parents and prospective students expected any tuition to be high, and if it wasn't, people figured that to mean the quality of the education was lower compared to similarly sized colleges which charged a lot more but the education was basically identical. To keep the doors open, he substantially raised tuition and enrollment increased by a huge factor.

The problem is student loans, if the students don't have the money the college will adapt to be less expensive.

Europe has cheap high quality colleges, I believe part of the difference is European colleges exist mainly to teach, while American colleges are a mini city with expensive sports teams and stadiums, large bureaucracy with many layers of admin, fancy facilities not directly related to education, etc, all to attract students to pay high fees.

European style colleges exist in the US: They're community colleges.

The problem in the US is that "community college" is seen as a lower grade qualification that people "settled" for, instead of an educational focused institutional with bare bones and no immoral mandatory tie-ins (e.g. first year mandatory high price accommodations/gyms/meal plans, etc).

I understand community colleges have a lot of problems too (e.g. low educator pay and conditions). I'm just pointing out that everyone thinks that a European University is 1:1 with the city-colleges of the US, when in reality they're often nothing that fancy and pretty bare-bones.

Community college doesn't let you get a bachelors degree. You can't say that is equivalent to European universities that can take you all the way through a post-doc. You map them based on how far you can progress on the academic ladder, 2 year colleges aren't a big thing in Europe. In Europe being a university means it at least graduates phd's, and most students study at universities since they are so large.

Europe is not some magical place where everyone goes to college. Lots of people don't, and have no ability to go, because the billets are fixed by statute.

The bigger problem is that post-secondary schooling hasn't produced higher incomes to offset the cost. Adjusted for inflation, incomes are the same now as they were before anyone went to these schools (i.e. incomes are stagnant). Even if tuitions were affordable without debt, there would still be no economic return on investment. Even if it were free, the opportunity cost of your time still leaves you net negative. Unless its your hobby and you are accepting of the cost for the trade in enjoyment, why bother?

Room and board is already more expensive than the in-state tuition on an average basis. You could further reduce tuition and fees, but it costs a lot to be housed and fed (and to forgo earning a full-time income for 4 years).

Could you realistically get room and board down below $8K/year with more spartan dormitories and meal plans? Maybe, but not by much I don't think.

https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college

Speaking from anecdotal experience, the university I went to put a lot of thought and money into things like being sustainable, producing zero waste, having high quality healthy food, etc. This is fantastic if you're looking at things from a long term perspective.

On the other hand, if your goal is to churn as many bodies out as possible with degrees, it's a pretty big waste of money. We could ship in frozen tyson chicken from China or whatever and just deep fry it as dinner, and turn the dorms into pod hotels or something.

Of course that goes from ideal to complete dystopia, but if that's your goal... lol.

> Room and board is already more expensive than the in-state tuition on an average basis.

As Bronn of the Blackwater said, “it’s all [housing policy] in the end”.

> Double the number of large quality state universities.

As far I can tell there aren't capacity issues to get accredited education at the undergrad level. The prices are driven by student loan availability and the need for investment in amenities for colleges to attract students.

Increasing the number of universities might worsen the problem due to the latter needing to redouble investments to attract students.

> The prices are driven by student loan availability and the need for investment in amenities for colleges to attract students.

Does the US have colleges that choose to attract students with lower prices instead?