You might want to have a look at CEGEPs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEGEP
I think this is a pretty good idea! A lot of students at the colleges I went to spent their first year taking core classes or classes in a major they ended up switching out of. Might as well let students take care of that first year somewhere more affordable/accessible to everyone, and then move on to college.
There are many options that we could explore if our political system allowed it. The one that makes the most sense to me is to provide two paths for students: one which leads to a university and one which is vocational. The university path could begin at 16 with the curriculum that would typically be taught to a college freshman.