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Other countries don't have this problem. There is no debate to be had - the US can't control costs

Agreed. That's the same core problem with the US health care system as well.

Yet in both cases, education and health care, control of costs is pretty much not discussed at all. The only narrative we seem to hear is along the lines of "find more money to pay for it".

Everything is a business in the US - which means middlemen everywhere between services and the people consuming them. The fact that costs are hidden in both places to the end user is a huge problem, and the government solution is literally to throw more money into the system instead of controlling costs through evil regulation. You just can't have it both ways - either you subsidize and regulate cost or you remove the middlemen and make the entity compete on the basis of cost. The problem with both health care and education is that the goods aren't elastic - they're required in most cases. This, they don't even compete on cost basis but instead quality, which drives prices ever higher.

"Cue", like in the theatre.

Yep. Whoops.

Nitpick, you probably mean post-secondary education.