Do they scale? If a large number of people actually all together tried something else, would it work?

Doesn't this line of reasoning assume that right now there is a big misallocation and some are way over capacity while others have lots of space capacity? I would assume that whatever the current situation, capacity distribution is about equal to how it is. So any big shifts would not be possible short and even medium term. And if the needed shift happens, would the result, the new equilibrium, really be different, or would we still have a similar situation, just with he pieces shuffled around?

The problem with solutions that individuals like to come up with is that they only work for individuals. I try to always imagine my idea(s) on a large scale, what if everybody really does it? Lots and lots of "good advice" does not actually scale. When you change only a few things the big picture remains constant, so many of those ideas work. But as soon as there are large scale changes there are feedback effects and the context changes too, what used to be a constant environment will have changed too.

That's the problem: free college doesn't scale. A place like Germany, which has about half the college enrollment figures than the US (~6-7% for the US, 3-4% for Germany) has excess capacity and even lets some foreigners study for free. The US is in the opposite end of the supply : demand ratio.

Ultimately I think the crux of the problem is that in the United States a lack of a college education is seen as a serious character flaw. A lot of Americans understand this, but I think it's important to illustrate this for non-Americans. A lack of a college education is seen a such a flaw that it automatically invalidates the prospect of marriage for many people [1]. Democrats (and I count myself among them) often tout the fact that they regularly win most of the vote among college educated voters - how this is supposed to be a positive unless one views the opinions of non-college educated as lesser is a mystery to me. Outside of low-class neighborhoods, a child failing to get admitted to university is an embarrassment. I personally don't agree with these things, and they're likely far from universal, but I do think they illustrate

The result, I think, is a large segment of the population taking on debt to get an education that won't actually yield much of a return in the labor market. And the messed up thing is that in a way they are making a sound choice because the stigma of being uneducated is so strong. Whereas in many places like the aforementioned Germany getting an apprenticeship and becoming a skilled worker is respected. I've heard stories about this shifting and the requirements to attending gymnasium (the college-bound educational track) are loosening, but it's still probably nowhere near the level as in America.

1. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/10/dating-...

I don't understand your very low college enrollment figures.

Also, if you look at Germany, there are "Universität", "Hochschule" - but also "Fachhochschule".

Enrollment is at almost 60% - according to the text on the right that's the share of those who begin a study on the entire population born in the respective year: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/72005/umfrage...

The enrollment rates I provided are the percentage of the total population that are enrolled in university. It is important to consider the fact that the US population is younger by a considerable margin as compared to Germany. Even if the degree attainment rates aren't very far off, the percentage of population enrolled in university can be significantly different due to that age difference.

These statistics are from an Economist article, which I can try and track down if I have the time.

Edit: Didn't track down the economist article, but here are sources on US and German enrollment rates:

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372 reports 19.9 million students. About 6 to 6.2% of the US population.

https://www.uni-bonn.de/studying/international-students/coun... reports 2.8 million germany university students. About 3.4% of the population.

I don't see that those enrollment rates are of use for the discussion, that they show anything useful. Especially given the difference in cost and the high number of (paying) international students supporting the US system.

Not to mention that Germany has an extensive professional education system ("Facharbeiter" to "Meister") that he US does not have, so what's the point of only looking at one part of the education system?

I would not even be sure if we are actually counting the same thing on both sides. When the US means "higher education", not all institutions are MIT and Harvard grade. Is all that you counted in your number actually comparable to what Germans mean when we count higher (university) education? See my 2nd paragraph, is some of that kind of education possibly counted in your US number, while in German it is a whole extra branch?

The enrollment rates are absolutely central to the discussion. Demand is drastically higher in the US - partly due to a young population, partly due to the strong social stigma of not having a university education. Higher demand creates higher costs.

The figures given are for all postsecondary education. I'm not sure why this is a controversial statistic. The younger US population would mean that even if the same percentage of graduating secondary school students go on to university, the US enrollment percentages would still by higher. Coupled with a higher percentage of students that seek university degrees after finishing secondary education (~70% for the US as compared to ~50% for Germany as per some quick Google searches) and a total enrollment figure of twice the rate of Germany is about what one would expect.

> I'm not sure why this is a controversial statistic.

Did anybody here dispute the statistics? I must have missed that.

I think you ignored about 2/3 of what I wrote (yes, I edited my comment, if you used a notification service you may have missed it)...