This could have been rigorously applied to schools as well in the past, and we would have ended with people not knowing basic math unless they need to. As someone from Russia where there are still many remnants of Soviet free education (and commercial education is notoriously worse), I really do not see most of your point. I would argue that providing free higher education does not require actually paying that much—prices for education, as everything, are regulated (I don’t mean direct governmental regulation) and thus will probably get lower if it is a universally-accessible thing.
This could have been rigorously applied to schools as well in the past, and we would have ended with people not knowing basic math unless they need to. As someone from Russia where there are still many remnants of Soviet free education (and commercial education is notoriously worse), I really do not see most of your point. I would argue that providing free higher education does not require actually paying that much—prices for education, as everything, are regulated (I don’t mean direct governmental regulation) and thus will probably get lower if it is a universally-accessible thing.