This is the fantasy of public education. It is the time of year where we experience the reality of public education. Many parents in the U.S. just spent thousands of dollars in "additional charges" to enroll their children in public schools.

True, there is a public school system in the US. I missed to recognise it. As you say, whether or not it is sufficient is another debate.

When I wrote my comment, my thoughts were around higher education though - not primary, middle and high schools. The ones like college education and higher education where people pay through the roof and rack up debts that stay with them for decades.

There are state schools, I got my bachelors and masters from university of alabama and funded it by working at a gas station. In state tuition was ~1200/semester back in 2005. I graduated with ~5k student loan that i paid off in 2 yrs post graduation.

FWIW I looked at University of Alabama tuition now and for an academic year was 10k in-state, or 5k/semester assuming 2 semesters a year. (With fees, room, and board, the total comes over 25k/year.)

So you most certainly can't fund your education at the same institution working at a gas station now with only 5k student loans.

> With fees, room, and board, the total comes over 25k/year

We lived off campus 4 ppl in a 2 bed ( ~100/head). My total living expense was ~350/month. My parents had recently immigrated, so i was totally ok with not having a "college experience" or actually knew what exactly it was. I was able to find another job on campus as an attendent at computer lab which game plenty of time to relax and do coursework.

I agree that now it might not be possible. But its doable if you get grants( which most of my classmates did) and are ok slumming it out though college.

The University of Alabama mandates that all incoming freshmen spend at least one year fully on-campus.

there are tons of exceptions to this. In my case I had almost 3 years gap between high-school and freshman year. My roomates were able to easily prove financial hardship that comes with on campus living.

Many communities in the US actively cripple their public schools via poor funding (and then send their kids to private schools, leaving only the poor behind).

"Segregation Academies", still highly prevalent across the south.

But most of these schools remain overwhelmingly white institutions, both because of their founding ethos and because tuition fees are a barrier to entry. In communities where many or most white students are sent to these private schools, the percentages of African-American students in tuition-free public schools are correspondingly elevated. For example, in Clarksdale, Mississippi, as of 2010, 92% of the students at Lee Academy were white, while 92% of the students at Clarksdale High School were black.[4] The effects of this de facto racial segregation are compounded by the unequal quality of education produced in communities where whites served by former segregation academies seek to minimize tax levies for public schools.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregation_academy

The evangelical movement was central to the formation, promotion, and organisation of the segregation academy movement.

https://ir.vanderbilt.edu/handle/1803/10763

We spend more than almost every country. It's not low in poor areas either; for example, Detroit Public Schools has much higher funding than the state average in Michigan.

The problem is not the amount being spent.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/07/us-education...

It’s complicated by the fact that if you do give the public schools money, they spend it on $10 million football facilities for 15 year olds, this is what happened in our community.

No idea about the specific situation in the US, but in my experience these kinds of distortions are almost always because said public school can only get the 10M for sports facilities because there is a specific fund for exactly this but not general school funding. The school then applies for it anyway because that means they can divert 100k or some other paltry share of said funds to be used for general school equipment etc.

This is true for core instruction but not sports and other extracurricular, which are Pay-fors in many parts of the US. Robert Putnam's "Our Kids" (great book!) is eloquent on the costs and consequences.