<p>Assuming that the middle-class “can pay” is a little naive. </p>
<p>Say someone’s parents make $100K. Well, 35% of that is immediately gone. Throw in 25K a year in to a mortgage, 10K in to transportation, 10K for food, 3K for clothes, 2K for miscellaneous, etc. and that family might <em>MIGHT</em> have 10K left for school provided this is their only kid or their other ones are going to weak, free public schools at the time. But they have to pay 30K a year for HYPS out of pocket. So they take out a second mortgage and plunge ever deeper in to debt. Kid graduates and wants to go to law school or medical school, only he already has 75K in loans and the juice is running. At the current average salaries for a college grad, he can expect to pay of undergraduate debt right about… the time his hair has all fallen out from the stress of being in debt for several decades. So can the middle-class REALLY “afford” it?</p>
<p>*note: in all commonsensicalness, schools with endowments in the multiple billions should, at this point, probably be giving free educations to anyone that works hard enough to earn admission, regardless of financial status. Only the truly wealthy can really “afford” a $200,000+ dollar piece of paper.</p>