system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5:Why does college cost so much in the United States while it is free in other parts of the world?
gpt
It costs *something* because education beyond high school (which is paid for by everyone's taxes) is viewed as either a luxury or an investment that people should pay for themselves.

It costs *so* *much* because various government initiatives made it possible for people to borrow money to pay for it.  Generally speaking, making it easy to borrow money to buy certain things causes the price of those things to go up, since anyone who really wants it but doesn't have the cash can borrow to pay for it, so raising the price doesn't shut people out of the market.  (You see the same thing with mortgage interest rates and house prices.)  Furthermore, people justify borrowing that money because it's seen as an investment -- you'll make enough money later to pay it back, and more -- though that's not always true.