Well, if you want to get abstract, the money itself is "free," printed by the Fed almost arbitrarily. By any number of mechanisms that money ends up primarily concentrated in one group of very wealthy people.

You can divert that "free" money and have "free" things for the middle class. That the wealthy would then be "paying" for it is a philosophical perspective that presupposes the status quo for wealth distribution is somehow "correct"

Ultimately this is just mixing up definitions of "value" in disguise. It's the reverse of assuming price is tied to some kind of intrinsic "value" of the good. Here, you're assuming nothing can be free (in economical sense) because physics. But it's not true. If you give stuff away no strings attached, it's free, period.

In the specific example being discussed of government funded "free" college education it most certainly is not being given away with "no strings attached".

There's a very real stipulation that regardless of whether an individual actually attends a university or not they will be having the monetary products of their labor forcibly taken and used to pay the professors, construct the facilities, and heat the buildings.

It just happens by means of taxes instead. Right now, banks get a pretty hefty profit off those that can't afford it upfront, it's a tax on the poor (and often middle class) more than the rich.

Can you provide an example of a "stuff" that is given away for free, and also specify who is "giving" it, and to whom?

I'm giving you this stupid comment right now. No charge.