There is no easy solution to the tuition debacle. A bit of history: Harvard and the entire Ivy League have always been unaffordable. The average cost of attending Harvard in the 1980's was around $10,000. The median family income at that time hovered just under $30,000. Public colleges and universities, by comparison, were a steal. I mean that literally! In California, in the 1980's, an undergraduate majoring in history paid the same tuition at the UC's as did a medical student. The resources required to teach a history major are just not the same as teaching a medical student. My contention: the current shake up in higher education is long overdue. Unfortunately, we are paying dearly now for the ill-conceived, inefficient pricing structure of times past. So I applaud the recent effort by certain college presidents to actually lower their fees!
Here's a link to an article in the NY Times with more detail on colleges that are lowering fees: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/26/education/getting-out-of-discount-game-small-colleges-lower-the-price.html?pagewanted=2&hp