Found this interesting:

No less important, Americans spend a far higher proportion of their national wealth on higher education than the British. According to the OECD, the UK spends 1.3 per cent of GDP on tertiary education, precisely the EU average. The US, on the other hand, spends 3.1 per cent, far more than any other country in the world.

The UK has about a 38% tertiary degree rate compared to the U.S.’s 42%. All in all, I’d say nearly functionally equivalent. So in a world where we didn’t look to technology, but to policy for solutions one might make the interesting observation that we could might be able to reduce the cost of education by about 60% by following a UK model.

Mind you, I’m not endorsing the UK model. But a look around the world will show you that where tertiary education is left to markets education gets more expensive without any net increase in quality or access. No doo-hickey cooked up in a Mountain View garage can “solve” that problem.