Harvard University, Princeton University and Yale University, in addition to being Ivy League schools and counting themselves among the top 10 universities in the nation, are also some of the most expensive schools in the country. None of them has a tuition that is under $36,000 a year. In fact, when you look at U.S. News & World Report's list of the top 50 schools in the country (a list which Brandeis is included), almost none of them have a tuition that is less than $30,000 a year, and many have tuitions upwards of $40,000 a year. This means that the cost of attending a top-50 university in the United States will fall somewhere between $120,000 and $160,000 for 4 years, and that cost is just tuition alone.

Just to impress upon you the staggering cost of college in the U.S. a little more: Oxford University in the United Kingdom (the 12th- best university in the world) only costs between $5,830 and $14,991 per year, depending on household income.

Suddenly, John Hrabe's April 22 op-ed on the Huffington Post arguing that community college is a good choice makes a lot more sense. Yet even with community college as a relatively more affordable option for some, all forms of higher education-including community college-are still acutely expensive.

Higher education in the U.S. is a catch-22. You can't find a "good" (read: well-paying) job without at least a bachelor's degree, and most jobs these days require a master's degree or a doctorate as well. Yet most people who go to a "good" college (read: a well-known brand name) will find themselves in insurmountable debt after they graduate. And even if they can find a good job right away, which in this economy many cannot, it will still take years before that debt is settled.

Community colleges and other public schools do provide a viable alternative to brand-name schools like Yale and Harvard. However, when it comes to finding a job, the name value and networking resources available to those who go to prestigious, well-known schools can often give them a greater advantage. Furthermore, those who do go to community college often need to transfer to a 4-year institution and end up paying an exorbitant sum anyway, as most community colleges only offer 2-year degrees.

Additionally, if one considers the actual cost, even community college may not be a viable option for a low-income family that lives hand-to-mouth. The average cost of community college is $2,076 per year. That's significantly less than any public or private institution, but it's still a large sum for a family that lives from paycheck to paycheck and may not have any savings or assets to fall back on.

Essentially, the higher education system in the United States represents one of the most pervasive structural inequalities in our society. As I said before, it is almost always necessary to have a bachelor's degree or master's degree to get a job that pays well enough to render its employees "middle class." But those degrees are only readily available to those who can pay, have good enough credit to take out loans or are lucky enough to get a sizable scholarship. Higher education is not at all accessible to the lowest classes of America. In some cases, the cost of just applying to college-SAT preparation and registration fees, application fees, transportation for tours and interviews-is too high in its own right, let alone the cost of tuition and fees.

And what happens to those who are lucky enough to make it to college? Once there, those whose parents cannot support their cost of living must work to get by, possibly taking away from their academics, extracurricular activities and social lives. Without funding, they would not be able to afford an elusive unpaid summer internship, another factor considered "necessary" for obtaining a "good" job after graduation. These days, just a college degree alone is not enough. Without extracurricular activities or an internship, one would likely not stand out in a competitive pool of job applicants and be left no better off than before going to college.

If a low-income family wants to "lift" itself up, the parents need to send their children to college. If they cannot afford college, they must take out loans to be able to do so. When the children graduate, they will be mired in debt with no job and no assets. If they do not go to college, they will still have no job and no assets.

How have we allowed this status quo to become acceptable? We wonder what we can do to help the poor, but running food drives and making monetary donations are only treating the symptoms-not the virus. If we want to close the income gap in the U.S., the first and most important step we can take is to make college affordable for anyone who wants to go. And that doesn't just mean tuition and fees: That means all of the costs associated with applying to and attending college. If we can lower the cost of college, we can make significant steps toward equality in this country.