The article assumes that everyone needs to go to school for 4 straight years, full time, living in the dorms and having the typical college experience. There are ways to pay for college that take longer. There are co-op schools. There is still ROTC. There is working full time and taking night courses. Not everyone can go to a fully supported 4 year college experience, but there are still ways to make enough money to pay for a course or two, and sooner or later you have enough courses to graduate.
I met a nice kid trying to convince my daughter to join ROTC during orientation at her school. He told me that he was one of seven kids, and his parents promised each child one year of college and then they were entirely on their own. They all did it through combinations of scholarships, ROTC, being RAs in the dorms, working traditional jobs during the school year and summers. This wasn’t decades ago, but now. This is a low tuition school, but that should be part of the decision too, how much are the costs that the students are trying to self fund.