Unfortunately we don't know what her overall tuition was- $95000 would be cheap for BA&MA pretty much anywhere. And that's another part of the problem- the uni

Unfortunately we don't know what her overall tuition was- $95000 would be cheap for BA&MA pretty much anywhere. And that's another part of the problem- the universities price themselves like airlines. You hand the school all of your financial information and they set a tuition price just enough out of reach that a loan seems reasonable. And while comparative literature seems extravagant, she could have gotten her degrees in physics and be facing basically the same problem.