Harvard already has an interesting system, a pretty large expansion of the traditional need-based aid, where students from families making <$50k income pay no tuition at all in the first place, so the only loans they need are for living expenses and books.
Incidentally, that's one of the factors making the "college tuition has doubled" statistics a bit misleading as a measure of how much higher-education costs to operate. While the sticker price college tuition has doubled, the proportion of students paying sticker price has declined, so tuition revenue has not doubled. In addition, for public universities, the state subsidies have declined in almost all states, so tuition hikes are often just revenue-replacement for lost state funds. Attending school gets more expensive, but because of a cost-shift away from taxpayers towards tuition payers, not because the school actually gets any more money.
A way to net-out all those factors is to calculate the cost of college education using aggregate numbers: total budget of the university divided by number of students. By that measure, rather than doubling, at some universities the cost of higher education has actually declined. For example, the University of California system spends 25% less per student, in real terms, than it did in 1990. Tuitions have nonetheless gone up, mainly due to a massive (~40%) decline in per-student state funding, and secondarily due to an expansion of student aid meaning that the sticker-price tuition has diverged further from the average actually-paid tuition.
I think this is the solution for the top schools that have very rich people willing to pay full boat tuition and/or donate to the endowment.
State schools are still mostly affordable. The top 100-150 private schools (including both tech schools and private schools) can probably operate like the top schools. Many people go to them for their location, their campus, their athletics, etc.
But what should the 'lower tier' schools do? That's where the real problem is. They cost nearly the same but don't provide as much value. Rich people aren't lining up to go to East Crappy Value State University. So everyone has to pay much closer to sticker price - needy or not.
> While the sticker price college tuition has doubled, the proportion of students paying sticker price has declined, so tuition revenue has not doubled.
That only seems to be true at a few top private institutions. Which make up a very small percentage of overall college attendance.
Incidentally, that's one of the factors making the "college tuition has doubled" statistics a bit misleading as a measure of how much higher-education costs to operate. While the sticker price college tuition has doubled, the proportion of students paying sticker price has declined, so tuition revenue has not doubled. In addition, for public universities, the state subsidies have declined in almost all states, so tuition hikes are often just revenue-replacement for lost state funds. Attending school gets more expensive, but because of a cost-shift away from taxpayers towards tuition payers, not because the school actually gets any more money.
A way to net-out all those factors is to calculate the cost of college education using aggregate numbers: total budget of the university divided by number of students. By that measure, rather than doubling, at some universities the cost of higher education has actually declined. For example, the University of California system spends 25% less per student, in real terms, than it did in 1990. Tuitions have nonetheless gone up, mainly due to a massive (~40%) decline in per-student state funding, and secondarily due to an expansion of student aid meaning that the sticker-price tuition has diverged further from the average actually-paid tuition.