Seems penalizing the student is the wrong way to go, rather I'd penalize the institution: e.g. if the institutions has a low graduation rate, and low post-graduation salaries that would be expensive, high graduation rate coupled with high post graduation salaries would garner a lower rate...
Agree. Unless I missed it, I didn't see the author acknowledge the huge leaps in tuition costs. Should be noted that the author is a Libertarian, so his range of solutions will (likely) be limited by that perspective.