I was impressed with the community college classes I took. I can't imagine how much better the quality would be if you redirected that money from expensive schools to them. The cost of failure would be much lower if you decide that chemistry isn't for you and you want to do something else. That could really retrain our workforce for the future and I think it would be politically palatable.

Not sure how you'd manage class sizes while still maintaining quality (assuming increased enrollment). I guess would this end up turning into a "grade 13-16" thing where you have the same problems you have funding schools and paying teachers a good salary.