> Because what they're selling is not just an education (you can get that at (fill in blank) State), they're selling prestige and future opportunities.
Obvious follow up: Are there state universities using these techniques to drive down costs and be more flexible?
Community colleges for sure -- I would argue they have taken up the mantle of truly educating, especially those from lower income brackets, and are free for lower income students in many states. They also have good transfer pathways to a four-year university. It's by far the most affordable way to get a bachelor's degree.
Some flagship state schools (example [0]) offer free tuition for lower income students providing they maintain a certain GPA.
But middle class families have a hard time as they are usually above the threshold for aid, and yet tuition (and housing) is a huge financial burden.
There definitely are state schools that work hard to drive costs down for in-state students.
Florida is weirdly enough a good example as the sunshine state scholars program provides a reasonably approachable way for any student in the state to enter high school with the intent on going to university and graduate with the criteria to get 50%, 75%, or 100% tuition and fees covered under the sunshine state scholars program.
Then you have states like Virginia who have some of the fastest rising costs of attendance in the country and where cost of attendance at state schools (which are generally supposed to be cheaper) actually ends up being comparable or even more than cost of attendance at private universities.
The community college system does a good deal here. As an example in California, students can get a great deal of their undergrad lower division work done at a community college for a fraction of even UC or State university cost (which for instate students is already fairly low).
Community colleges are also where folks would normally turn to for casual the classes they wanted to take but didn’t necessarily want the formalities of the full degree. Online delivery of there helped further but vs MOOCs, CC has geographic and residency restrictions for who can actually study there.
Oregon State has a large offering of online undergrad and grad programs: https://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/. There were 11,430 ecampus students in Fall 2023 [1].
The ecampus tuition (~13K/year) is still substantial compared to the in-person tuition for out-of-state students (~38K/year), and nearly identical to the in-person tuition for in-state students (~14K/year) [2].
The State of New York is offering free tuition at any SUNY school for all students who reside in the state with incomes up to $125,000 for dependent students; $60,000 for married students with no dependents; $30,000 for independent single students with no dependents.
This will make a huge difference in the market for degrees.
Obvious follow up: Are there state universities using these techniques to drive down costs and be more flexible?