You hit the nail right on the head, Cait Mack! I went to Univ. of Hawaii back in the 1970s. Yeah, I'm a boomer but not the "conservatives" this author is addressing. A WHOLE LOT OF US were busy protesting one of our most heinous and illegitimate wars - in Viet Nam. AND my tuition at UH in the 70s? $85 per SEMESTER. Plus $50 a semester for private piano lessons from our ALL-Juilliard-trained pianists. Loans? I got some free tuition when I was a committee chairman on one of the Student Board - Music, and we had a budget to provide Friday Noon concerts from professional musicians. I was just LUCKY. Because in the early 2000's I went to grad school in Colorado - and ended up with a huge debt. But I also got very sick at the end of the first of three years, and applied for debt forgiveness (which I found out from my Senator) eventually.