The problem isn't that you can't get educated outside of the university education system. It's that people assume that someone with a college degree is educated, and someone without one isn't.
I consider that no more accurate as assertions that grade school students haven't learned anything unless they can pass a standardized test, but I don't think there's an easy solution. For the near future at least, college degrees will continue to be the main criteria for guessing if someone's qualified for a lot of jobs.
But, I am not convinced college tuitions will fall.
Demand is increasing. Just in the last 10 years enrollment has increased 30% and is still increasing. Any ranked university/college does not have trouble filling their enrollment goals with their current tuition. Although there may be some delayed price pressure from higher prices causing lower caliber students to enroll, thus decreasing the ranking of the school, and thus reducing what they can charge.
In addition, most american try to achieve a middle class lifestyle at a minimum. And culturally a middle class lifestyle entails the children having a college experience (and its associated costs).
The hammer costs what supply and demand say it should cost. And with universities, you have a case of increasingly plentiful supply for most materials chasing relatively stable demand. So market reality dictates that prices will fall, if not now then eventually.