>>Plus, financial aid is need-based; they will meet demonstrated need. At least half of them (including UPenn, my alma mater) now use grants-only financial aid, as well. So while it's not quite a free ride--you are expected to pay some portion based on savings and family income, an Ivy or comparable can actually be cheaper than a state school.
I was imagining a future in which university endowment funds continue to grow such that tuition fees no longer are required at all, or at least can return to the inflation-adjusted costs in the 1970s and 1980s. E.g. check out Harvard: their "low" 15.4% on their endowment fund last year still yields about $230K per year per student, plus billions more pouring in from the alumni. It could reach $500K/year per student by 2020. What are the tuition fees for again?
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
