In Colorado, your state taxes are based on your federal taxes. Yes, you do pay sales tax but that doesn’t support the college and university system. My kids went to college in Wyo and Florida, two states without income tax (but FL taxes everything else and Wyo just has a lot of money to fund education and only one school to support).
I get your point but I think most states, even Pennsylvania, have some school that most students can afford or they have ways for residents to get a college degree - work and go part time, live at home, military, free community college. It is not as much fun as Stanford but it can be done. My kids didn’t have the choice of going to a full pay $50k school and I was fine telling them that. Two kids, one parent who never made a lot, and I didn’t feel guilty about it at all. We did take a couple of vacations (Ive skied at Aspen but they haven’t, at least not on my dime), I did drive a 15 year old Honda until it was 22 years old, I did pay for some sports but not thousands, and one kid did get a college scholarship out of it.
But I have no issue with schools charging $100k if that is the group they want to attract to their schools. Just wouldn’t be my kids.