An interesting case is what happened at my University. While I was an undergraduate, the tuition was fixed by the state legislature at an artificially low level. The University constantly lobbied the legislature for the right to raise tuition, arguing that they found it difficult to compete for top faculty. While unable to raise tuition, they responded by assessing all manner of "fees" which were not subject to review by the legislature. I don't have one handy, but I think by the time I graduated my bill was actually 75% fees and 25% "tuition".

The thing that always irritated me is how some students and faculty fought against the University's desire to set its own tuition on the grounds that this would harm economically disadvantaged students. Tuition would inevitably increase, which would supposedly price some people out of the school. This just wasn't the case, depending on how the additional tuition was spent. Instead of arguing against a tuition increase, they should have been arguing *for* a tuition increase along with an accompanying increase in the amount of need-based financial aid.

Suppose the initial tuition were $2500/yr. That's pretty close to what I was paying. Suppose also that 20% of students received financial aid, at an average of $2500/yr per student. That's roughly accurate. Now let's suppose that the University were to apply a 100% year-to-year increase. Would it be possible to both generate additional revenue *and* not put any more stress on lower-income students? Certainly. For any student unable to pay the new tuition amount, just don't make them pay. Voila. Only students who can afford the increase receive the increase. The University generates more revenue, can hire better faculty, etc., and poorer students don't pay any more than they already do.

Ironically, the system of extremely *low* tuition was actually *worse* for lower-income students, in that it severely restricted the amount of financial aid money the University had to dole out.