I love talking about budgets!!! The funding model of US universities is fascinating. 51% of @UTAustin's expenditure goes to salaries and that's mostly covered by tuition. We have the country's 2nd largest endowment, but it can only be used for infrastructure https://twitter.com/eeberquist/status/1275175251609964544

If other universities are anything like UT, only a small part of tuition actually goes toward student services that are not in use during the pandemic (libraries, Rec Sports etc). The rest really covers salaries https://thedailytexan.com/2018/02/22/balancing-ut%E2%80%99s-budget-and-rising-tuition-where-does-the-university%E2%80%99s-money-come-from-and

The athletics program pays for itself and only transfers ~$10million to the university every year (vs ~$600 million from tuition). So even if football resumes in the fall, it's not like these wins could offset the losses of a potential tuition reduction https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2019/01/15/texas-athletics-program-had-over-219-million-revenue-2018/2586818002/

11% of the university budget comes from @TXlege, but given the drop in oil prices I doubt they'll increase transfers for next year. And donations/gifts are also typically earmarked in advance, so you can't just use it to cover anything you want https://budget.utexas.edu/about/budget 

In sum, US universities have pretty rigid budgets. They can't just cut tuition and use endowments, sports revenue, state funding etc to compensate for these cuts. Remote learning is extra labor for profs and doesn't change anything in terms of university expenses

TL;DR - I believe universities should be free and accessible to all, as they are in many countries in the world. But the way higher education works in the US does not currently allow for this