My understanding is that those countries that provide free college educations to students, only do so after those prospective students have passed a battery of tests and are then only sent to the appropriate college or trade school.
If any state, or the Feds, decided to pay for college for anyone with a C- GPA or better then get ready for waste, fraud, and abuse that would make Animal House look like a Quaker prayer meeting.
You can expect new rackets will appear that provide out-of-staters with fabricated documents showing they are life-long residents.
Testing is sorely needed.
I provided tutoring services when in college and was paid by different departments.
Most of my students were free-ride single moms and free ride for other reasons students.
Some just needed help understanding a concept.
But the vast majority didn’t understand basic issues. Not because they were undereducated, but because they lacked the firepower.
I would sit down with their profs and explain the issues and leave it to the profs to help them find another educational alternative. Like daycare provider.
On your comment of ‘free’ education in various countries and the battery of tests required....I’ll use Germany as an example.
As a kid, you have to pass out of Gymnasium (higher level of high school), in order to attend a university. Only the brighter of the kids get into this situation.
So once you apply for a university in Germany, you will pay some minor tuition cost per year (figure $600 per semester), of which you could apply to the state and have them cover the cost.
Heavy drinking or not showing up for class? You won’t make it past the first year, and they will kick you easily out. NCAA-like sports in the German university setting? No, absolutely none. A lot of non-professor staff members hidden within the cost factor of each university? No, you won’t find added cost like that. Private university cops? No, if they have a problem...they call the city cops and let regular law take place.
You could run a ‘free’ scheme like New York suggests, but you’d have to change dozens of current practices and probably fire thirty-percent of the excess support staff, and dump all the NCAA sports gimmicks. I don’t see that happening.