Higher education is very expensive and for a variety of reasons: Politics (Federal and State), poor decisions by Colleges and Universities (give me a break, a university with an endowment of several BILLION dollars is faced with the "difficult" decision to raise tuition to "cover costs"....the cost of a bloated administration, yes!), the economy, costs in general. All of these have dramatically increased costs to the point where many middle-class students can no longer afford to go to college or university without incurring huge loans and hardship for the family.

What? The privilged have special access to education, jobs, connections in the US - tell me in ain't so!