You can't get a premed degree, an engineering degree, or an MBA from a community college.

Online colleges are sketchy, still expensive, lacking in even more amenities, and suffer from low credibility..

Traveling abroad costs money, and the way most developed nations subsidize universities to keep costs down without flooding them with students is by increasing the required to get in and stay in school, so you're asking Americans to spend thousands of dollars to move abroad and apply to foreign universities and pass much more rigorous entrance and pacekeeping exams after going through the declining American school system. That's also hardly viable for most people.

Instead, we can just use the same solution most other nations have worked all of the kinks and bugs out of: Subsidize higher education with tax dollars, regulate the prices universities may charge, and increase academic rigor at universities to ensure that nobody without the will and the aptitude to succeed enrolls.

That last part serves the dual purpose of revitalizing community colleges and trade schools as more students accept that 4-year universities aren't aligned with their goals instead of going just because it's the thing to do.

2-year degrees and trade schools are often treated like consolation prizes in America. As if only those whose lives haven't panned out would ever end up there because everyone with their shit together gets a bachelor's degree.

We can change that by emphasizing with entry testing that 4-year degrees are highly specialized and intended for those interested in more academic or design-based work; and that those without those goals can and should instead pursue 2-year programs. By making 4-year degrees more selective we can also discourage employers from scorning a 2-year degree that meets every requirement for the job role.

Again: These problems have proven solutions that have been employed for decades all over the developed world. America need not reinvent the wheel.