[zanny]

Except the actual cost of college is not free, and for a lot of material covered in colleges it is an extremely inefficient way to convey that information, in both time and monetary cost.

A large part of the problem is that, in a glut of labor, employers use degrees as litmus tests of commitment rather than ability. If you can just ignore anyone who doesn't have a bachelors, you will, because why not? But that doesn't mean the bachelors is, at the macroeconomic level, worth it to society to push everyone to get.