Sure, but then the answer to my original question of who pays for it is the taxpayer. It isn't free, the cost is just subsidized by the public rather than paid by the student.

I'm not even saying that's a bad thing, if most people want it that way I don't see the problem. But it isn't free.

Sorry, but you're just being a bit pedantic about this and it's not helping any conversation.

I'm not sure how, it seems really important to distinguish between free and not free. To me it seems disingenuous to call something free when its publicly funded.

But everyone knows that "free" in this context means publicly funded. Free as in beer never meant that the entire production of the beer somehow was accomplished without financial or material input.

That doesn't hold up even just in this comment thread. Higher up when I asked who pays for it the reply I got was "Not anyone". The person really didn't seem to get that " free" == publicly funded == taxpayers pay for it.

No, they said that not just anyone can get in for free; there's an admission test.