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.
Given that state taxes heavily support higher education, it’s not the craziest idea in the world to give lower tuition to those who’ve been paying those taxes their whole lives.