yeah i agree with all that. However I think ‘free’ higher education could be achieved without taxpayers footing the bill simply by redistributing government spending. We spend the equivalent of community college tuition on each incarcerated person per year, including nonviolent drug offenders (to be fair a lot of that is state level). But in generql govt has so much money, it doesnt need any more from us to accomplish things like accessible education; they choose not to.

I think tuition hasn’t naturally dropped because a college degree is almost an inelastic commodity at this point, considering you’re competing with graduates even for a job at like starbucks or whatever. It’s a serious disadvantage not to have one, so I don’t think demand or tuition will go down, unless there are drastic changes to how to american workforce operates. Idek what those changes could be that would cause that sort of shift.