Alright, we’re kind of going in circles. Instead of addressing each point separately, I’m just going to give a more general response. I could write a more thorough case for why socialized education is a good idea, but frankly I’d have to write an article longer than the article in the OP to properly make the case, and I’m not really inclined to do that right now; maybe some other time. So I’ll try to keep this short, relatively speaking.
Bottom line is, education costs are well above what is necessary to actually instruct students. Part of the problem is the fact that aid money is spent so recklessly because the federal government does not control the schools that get them. States care a little bit, and private institutions care not a whole lot about keeping prices down. Universities themselves have little incentive to keep prices down because they get the money. Private schools (of both the for-profit and nonprofit variety), which don’t have to get permission from the government to change tuition rates, are the worst for this. Most of that money goes into projects that have little to do with education - executive salaries, sports, fitness centers, fancy dorms, cosmetic improvements, etc. Under strict controls and a significantly downsized university system, high-quality education could be provided on the cheap.
Alright, so college can be cheaper. Now why does that mean that the government has to pay for it?
That’s because the only real way to ensure that prices stay low is that the cost of the education is set by the government. And while yes, it would probably be possible to just have the financial aid system in place as-is while mandating that colleges charge no more than a certain price. But really, that just adds another layer of bureaucracy to the whole process because it already requires that the government do a whole lot more work, the entire system is subsidized by the government already, and then the financial aid system would just add more costs on the students who are less capable of footing the bill than the working population. This is one of those cases where taxing everyone to build something that benefits everyone is better than charging everyone who uses it separately. Education contributes a lot more to productivity than what it costs.
Why not just help the poor?
Because the system doesn’t work as well as you think it does for that. 40% of college students are over 25, and a lot of them don’t qualify for need-based financial aid, or scholarships, at all. The caps for financial aid don’t really help the students who live in expensive states. There are a lot of failures even for the specific demographic of 18-year-old college bound poor students, most of them having to do with not having supportive parents. And other demographics, such as students going back for a Masters or a second degree, because their career didn’t work out as well as they would like, are stuck. A lot of people choose not to go back to school, even in state universities, because the money just isn’t there, and they don’t make enough money to pay for it themselves. Student loans pile up quickly and they lead to debt for many years to come, and a lot of people can’t afford to take those, even if offered. Financial constrains are a very common reason for people choosing not to go to school, or back to school.
Furthermore, the costs can start to be too much even for parents of decent means. Middle class and upper-middle class parents also struggle to pay the bills for university attendance, because they get less aid money. Especially if they have more than one child. It’s not a good idea to just tell people to have only one child just so they could afford to send them to college. Too many children is not the problem in this situation.
What about private vs. public schools?
State schools are cheaper and more efficient overall, even though they do still waste a lot of money. For-profit schools are the worst offenders and despite being a small fraction of the overall school enrollment, they are responsible for about half of all student loan defaults. Private nonprofits are by far the most expensive, being a mix of high-ranking schools (e.g. Harvard, Stanford, MIT) and other schools such as liberal arts colleges. If nothing else, it would be important to bring the for-profit schools under control because they are by far the least effective in the entire system.
Private nonprofits are expensive, but they aren’t run by the government. They can do what they want, but perhaps they shouldn’t do so with government money. A lot of those schools aren’t really worth having, and a lot of the most reputable ones could fill up their class year after year even if they charged $50,000 per student per year, paid in advance.
Why should I pay for rich people to go to school?
Everyone pays for everyone else. They would probably end up paying more for you to go to school (or send your kids to school) than you would for them to do the same. But it would be cheaper for both you and for them overall because that system would lower prices across the board.