It's not a 0 sum game; it's very possible to have subsided education and meaningful social services; hell you can even deliver on economies of scale and do both academic out reach run by the local school with the intention of preparing applications from high-need communities.

In today's system if you can afford university with no debt you're very well off and it's probably a wash since the funds are coming largely out of your taxes (ie just about everyone that works in US tech and comments on this forum). The biggest winners are middle class families that can prepare their children for college but can't pay for it; but again, helping one group doesn't mean that it's no longer possible to help another group.

I can't see how restricting higher education back to the days when the hyper rich gathered to circle jerk about how much of the classics they've memorized helps in anyway (other than give all of us already educated in the workforce a lovely gate against the next generation).

The money is spent either way, whether it's tax dollars in a "free college" system or tuition dollars in the system we have or anything in between. Every dollar spent on college is a dollar that didn't get spent on some other service.

Meanwhile, if university education really is mostly a vacation for wealthy young adults, then funding it is regressive, because no matter how directly accessible you make it financially, it's still tilted towards the wealthy because they have the means to forego 4 years of income to attend, and because they're better prepared to apply and take advantage of it in the first place.

By that logic there should be no progressive programs at all because "someone" wealthy might also benefit. Especially in the current system, a college degree is overwhelmingly income positive[0]. Progressive programs don't imply the wealthy don't benefit just that the wealthy do pay for them. A student unable to afford university would be far better equiped to "forgo 4 years of income" (because there are so many well paying jobs for the highschool graduate in a low income area) if state schools were publically funded at the level they were 40 years ago.

A dollar spent on accessible college is just a dollar that can't be spent else where not necessarily a dollar taken from another services. Despite what some people might lead you to believe, taxes can be raised to pay for things (usually disproportionately affecting those wealthy people you're so concerned about getting a handout).

[0]https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/the-college-payoff/

This rebuttal pretends to say something, but really doesn't. Obviously, there are cases where subsidy makes no sense (universal free yacht moorings) and where it makes lots of sense (the fire department). The question is, where does a 4-year university degree fall on that spectrum? It's Rayiner's contention, and mine as well, though to a lesser extent, that college is a yacht mooring, not a fire department.

You can disagree, and then make your case, but you have to make it on the merits, not with mic-drop logic.

Note that my side already has a highly instructive example to argue from: the mortgage interest tax deduction, which turned out to be expensive, distortive, and highly regressive.