These exist. They're community colleges or correspondence courses. The problem is that a university education is a luxury good: costing less makes it worth less

These exist. They're community colleges or correspondence courses. The problem is that a university education is a luxury good: costing less makes it worth less, because more people have access to it. So all the students who are either gifted or well-connected go to the top tier universities, the slightly less so the second tier, allll the way down, until you reach your budget options. Since the value of the institution is largely dictated by the quality of the students it can attract, they end up offering a much worse value prospect than those more expensive institutions.