re: #84 iossarian

If you want cheap college, we need to do it the French way. National system, hold costs down by limiting professor and admin salaries, large classes, little personal attention and no obvious ways for families to buy their way into the system.

The last part is why this approach is unlikely to fly in the US. People are attached to the idea that you can buy quality for yourself, if you can afford it.

What saddens me is that, when we were there, the place was mostly middle class kids, whose parents could largely afford to send them to a good private college that provided an excellent education.

Now? Not so much. I’m willing to bet that most of my classmates are in the same boat I am - despite a solid upper-middle class income, I can’t afford to send my own children to the college I attended.