We have this problem that Universities are GREAT at marketing.

Jane doesn't want to go to some stooooopid lowly community college, she wants to go to USC because ahem, it's better!

You take as many classes as you can at community college then you transfer to a real university and technically graduate from there. Massive $avings.

"A college education is accessible to just about everyone in the US who wants it."

Agreed. And even throughout the world thanks to small startups like Khan Academy.

Um, no. Not at all.

The $26 per unit isn't the problem. It's paying for textbooks, housing, food, reliable transportation, medical insurance, and daycare while you're going to school and studying. Or trying to concentrate after a 50 hour workweek. I'm not saying that we shouldn't offer inexpensive community college courses, but pretending that it's anything but a small start is silly. If we really wanted, as a society, to get people through college, we'd pay for the full price instead of something that often represents only a fraction of the true cost of college.

The high schools generate students that aren't even capable of doing community college, or have enough sense to "want" to do community college.

It's hard to help people if they don't want to help themselves first.

There aren't people who don't want to help themselves - it's a basic instinct in every life form. There are people who "don't know how" to help themselves though.