I got my college degree paying no one penny of tuition. It was back in Poland when we had socialism. I started my political writing during my college years. At that time, I wrote a few articles arguing for college education to be paid for. Why? Because I saw a lot of waste of time and effort. As I had a meaningful income from my writing, I had a business attitude to my classes. Go, learn, pass the exams, and move on. A loose social attitude was not dominant, but often enough to be upsetting. I believe that if people would pay for their education, they would request value for their money.

I agree with you that those who can prove that they can and want to get higher education should be able to get it regardless of their ability to pay. There were colleges like that in the United States. The Cooper Union comes to mind. I know someone who was admitted there in the late 1990s. On the first day, they were told that a few years earlier, the school dissolved the entire class because of poor performance and that, as a matter of principle, no one was ever readmitted from that class. But would be that kind of “cruelty” acceptable now? Also, I heard that Cooper charges tuition now.