[mto]

I live in Vienna an this is not the case here. Problem is the other way round (currently, is under discussion) - Universities just get a fixed amount of money. So they try to restrict the number of students by themselves, using different methods to get rid of them.

But all in all, I think it worked out pretty well in the past - no tuition, free access and lectures are public anyway. So everyone gets a chance to try it, most drop out in the first year, probably changing field of study once or twice. But as we don't have that minor/major stuff but the curricula are extremely specialized, this is probably not bad for widening the horizon. Still better than arbitrary tests or the weird numerus clausus in Germany.

I don't think that an university degree should be mandatory for everyone (we have a lot of specialized schools as an alternative), but it's good if the option to try it is there.