Many things would be priced very differently if they had to be priced according to what the average person could afford to pay out of pocket. Third-party money, in the form of loans and grants, has driven college tuition sky high because the colleges no longer had to respond to actual demand. It created artificially inflated demand, and prices followed. Very similar to how easy money collapsed the housing market, and nearly the entire financial system along with it a few years ago.
If the practice of loaning and borrowing money were severely restricted, then it would benefit our economy tremendously in the long run, though with a difficult adjustment period to get there.
I think if state legislatures forced the public college crowd to an audit, and full explanation of salary/pension situations...it’d force a state-by-state change.