Clearly, the value proposition for a university is not the education it provides. Even if you wanted the atmosphere of being on campus all day, the rent-a-room strategy would give you that for far less with smaller classes. Obviously it would be hard to be taken seriously if you did this, so the issue is that you must pass through the university system to receive credentials, and for many fields these credentials are non-optional.
Even spending $100k/yr on a PhD evaluating students full-time, and spending an entire 1 week per student to rigorously personally evaluate them 1:1, you could charge $2000 total to attempt an evaluation for credentials, allowing non-traditional students to self-study for free. If we want to make education and accreditation more attainable for everyone, we need to separate granting of credentials from studying. Study requirements are redundant with a rigorous exam, and particularly for fields where exams are already in place for credentials (law, accounting, capital-E Engineering, etc.), study requirements should be barred.
[0] https://registrar.arizona.edu/support-services/classroom-ser...
[1] https://www.azcentral.com/pages/interactives/news/local/ariz...
[2] https://www.arizona.edu/admissions/first-year/cost
[3] https://financialaid.arizona.edu/types-of-aid/scholarships/i...
The thing to compare tuition to is teacher pay. At today's tuition rates, 10 or less students would pay their professors salary. Average class sizes are much larger, so it's obvious the money is going somewhere else. Done. Forget CPI, the schools are pricing based on perceived value, not cost, and an unlimited supply of government backed loans.