If, say, Bill Gates routinely handed out $10K to every person who has just bought a car, what do you think this would do to the prices of cars?
2. Define "able". Are you really advocating for a situation in which middle-class family routinely scrounge to save for college, or in which parents sell their houses to pay for college?(Btw, some countries (e.g., India) have a dowry system which requires parents of girls to save from the day the child is born and obviously it sucks to be those parents).
3. The original article seems to using the poor as a "human shield" to effect an arbitrary hike in fees. The reason the universities are not supported well is that govts are wasting money. I hope that resisting tuition fee increases will also pressure govt to reduce waste.
Because this is a state-supported system; the state can educate more students if they can get the rich ones to pay more and subsidize the poor ones. If its purpose is to educate more students, then price discrimination helps that purpose more than a "fairer" system would.
>Such a dysfunctional system already exists for healthcare.
In healthcare the uninsured pay more than the insured (and his insurer) pay. That seems more dysfunctional than a progressive system like this.
As you rightly acknowledge, "able" can hide a lot. I'm able to live several days without food, but it's hardly a thing to aim for. The article explicitly mentions "rich", and you should feel comfortable assuming that "rich" does not mean "middle-class". Failing that definition, consider "able" to be taken from "luxuries", rather than "necessities". You don't need to bring India into it. Sufficient?
You'll have to explain further how the poor are being used as a human shield here. Additionally, I'm not convinced that any protests based on increased tuitions will have an effect on government waste. It seems like effort better spent campaigning for reduced government waste (which is admittedly very likely a waste as well).
education is a good with almost-inelastic demand, hence
we can raise prices arbitrarily and in addition
eliminate government support for it :)
Wrt "rich", other posts indicate that $70K/yr household income as the upper limit for financial aid in CA. That's hardly "rich".