The landscape of the college cost debate -- Is higher education all that unusual? -- Higher education is a service -- The costs of employing highly educated workers -- Cost and quality in higher education -- The bottom line : why does college cost so much? -- Is higher education increasingly dysfunctional? -- Productivity growth in higher education -- Subsidies and tuition setting -- List-price tuition and institutional grants -- Outside financial aid -- The college affordability crisis -- Federal policy and college tuition -- Financial aid policy -- Rewriting the relationship between states and their public universities -- A few final observations.