American universities have an incentive to seem extortionate
Eventually this becomes an issue of national security.  If your brightest minds are categorically excluded from education in the service of maintaining the American class structure and quarterly profit margins, if debt cripples to such a degree that it disenfranchises anyone from considering education in the first place, then it becomes increasingly difficult to engage in the type of research and development that keeps and maintains your nations elite status.<p>A parasitic idiocracy ensues from which the prospect of recovery at all is grim at best.