The point is that you can thing "classic college experience" as a package of two things, one is the skills that transfer towards an occupation, and the second is the self-improvement part. But those are two separate things - they're both very nice and useful, however, the first is something that's a need for people to be able to function productively in our society (and thus we might reasonably want to ensure that a large portion of society gets it), and the latter is somewhat of a luxury, which is nice to have but if we can't afford to provide it (and it seems that we can't, not for everyone - at least if you take not only the cost of education but also on living expenses for all these years while not working) then not everybody should get it.

Spending an extra year or two on growing personally and intellectually costs comparably to a luxury car. It'd also be nice for everyone to literally drive a luxury car, but for most people it makes sense to drive something cheaper and more practical, rather than borrowing and spending that much resources on it; and in a similar manner for most people it makes sense to get practical education instead of "buying" in addition to that a year or two of self-improvement that you can't really afford.