For the record, I’m not American nor live in the US, but I have a 19-year-old son who started attending the University of Chicago this year, studying economics. Just the tuition itself is $70k. My husband and I are lucky enough to be able to afford it - I still believe it’s an outrageous amount of money to attend college.
A lot of folks are overlooking one of the largest factors, unlimited student loans for whatever.
As long as people have access to an ever increasing amount of money to use for tuition, it is in those institutions’ interests to rise their prices to extract as much as possible.
Whereas other countries tend to subsidize their education at source, that is to say, by funding the schools directly which somehwat obviates the price gouging aspect.