I'm not so sure about that. Remember, the laws of economic are ALWAYS at play. If you change some of the parameters, people will just behave differently to get the result they want.
I see it playing out like this...public universities will get a TON more students from among those who ordinarily wouldn't go to college. The smaller private universities will get a lot of kids that would have gone to public university but now have to go to a private one to get a valuable education. They will still be willing to take out large loans if the value of an actual "college education" will return larger future salaries. The elite private schools will remained unchanged.
public universities (the new "high school plus") - WIN
small private universities (the new "college")- WIN
elite private universities - no change
tax payers (the "suckers") - LOSE
I think you’re almost right.
Except I don’t think it will the “tax payers” that lose. Last I looked, DC is spending about 1.4x what it takes in. It’s not like they have to balance the budget to pay for new spending. They’ll just throw this extra spending on the debt.
The losers are the ones who will end up getting stuck with the debt we leave them. I predict it will be these folks who thought they got a “free” education.