We have plenty of cheaper schools too, and they’re fine.
The expensive schools are for the richest people to say they went to school next to the best students who get in free.And for the best students to meet rich people.
The cheapest you're going to get is $10K a year (and that's hard to find), and that's just tuition. If it's not near your parents' home then you're looking at $25K/year bare minimum (as in living off ramen packs and peanut butter). So that's $100K that your parents have to have saved up (per child) or which you have to take on as debt.
Just looked up our main state schools and cost of attendance is $31K - $35K for in-state residents. So that's $120K - $140K for 4 years (not counting increases). And these aren't top-100 schools either.
Even the cheaper schools in the US (public universities) aren't all that cheap anymore. When was an undergrad in the late 1980s, I paid under $2000 a semester. Now it is close to $10000. Yes, there's been inflation since then, but not 5X (it's more like 2.5X).