My argument is that not valuing education (as evinced by an unwillingness to spend public money on it) is an even bigger problem than the actual lack of money for education, though that is also certainly a problem.

Where there's no will, there's no way...

I can get a better education from Moocs than I did from my tenured mathematics professor who didn’t know the applications of linear algebra in the real world.

Would you ask your Literature professor what the real world applications of reading Joseph Conrad are? I think asking for a 'real world application' of something you are learning in the course of a liberal education is missing the point.

Trade schools are a different sort of thing.

For an engineering discipline getting a college degree is almost always a requirement for getting a real job. This means that practically for a lot of people college is largely intended to be training for their job, so it makes sense why they get frustrated when it doesn't actually train them for it.

To pull my personal experience in college was frustrating because I didn't feel like I had much control over what I wanted to learn because college had their idea of a "liberal education" (which didn't match up with mine) and in a modern job market I had little choice but to attend.

If you mean like a licenced engineer, a PE or something, then sure, a degree is required. But if you mean someone in the computer industry, as the word is usually used in these parts? A degree is a substitute for a few years of experience, If you can learn the Material in question.

Higher education is turning more and more into over-priced crap. I’m not sure that this is the solution.

There's no free lunch. You're paying for it.

I personally place public education up there with an army and cops as things I really want my society to have.

Yeah, all those things cost money... but not nearly as much as not having those things will cost you in the long run.