you've romanticized higher education into something it's never been. It started off as a means for the children of the wealthy to network and show off that they were wealthy enough to waste years of their lives learning information with no practical value like Latin. Actual useful skills required for society to function were learned on the job

The most logical and efficient option is for the government to subsidize some open source books for crucial topics and then provide a testing and credential system to prove knowledge on said topic.