Post secondary education stopped being free when it started being used as a springboard for social mobility under the GI Bill with Vietnam War veterans who weren't white.
It was marketed by Reagan as a "tax revolt". It was really a war on democracy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/12/29/history-student-loan-debt/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/new-deal-us-economy-american-dream/676051/
Republicanism is dedicated to this proposition:
The determination to destroy any mechanism that thwarts the entrenchment of a permanent underclass, with ...
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