The public colleges and universities are financed out of the state budget. Have been for more then a century.
Very few people go to private Ivy League schools. The public system has charged students to defray the cost of their education.
It was never free but it was affordable.
I live in Pennsylvania. Penn State tuition is very high, but there are other options. I live in the Philadelphia area. Kids here can commute to Temple, a Penn State satellite, Cabrini, Chestnut Hill, Rosemont, etc. Excellent students can go to Temple for free, and maybe Pitt or West Chester as well.
If you're not a good enough student to bring tuition costs at any of those schools sufficiently low via merit aid and your parents really can't help more than your room and board, then you need to go to Community College for two years. I'd recommend getting some sort of health degree - respiratory therapy, RN, x-ray tech, etc. At that point, most of the hospitals in the area have some sort of partial tuition remission to help turn those associate degrees into bachelors.
It's not easy to get a degree without a lot of debt, but it is still very doable for most people.