> It should be completely free for everyone but regulated to jettison all that non-education stuff (except for some "soft" services like healthcare, therapy/counselling etc).
What do you think made the CSU/UC system the most affordable and attractive option in the Country?
The thing you need to accept is that the unfettered administrative bloat was by design, and will always lead to this; the CSU/UC system was essentially tuition-free if you were local and extremely low cost for most of its History because it didn't offer what the others did and we Californians funded that with extremely high local/state/property taxes and our family and by extension our economies were rewarded for it, so we put up with.
It wasn't until the bureaucrats made Industry impose a mandatory University degree for most entry-level jobs well into the 90s that many of those same people migrated to academia and start to shift it to the sordid mess you see today.
Honestly, I say keep in place: let it fall into disrepute crippled by its own malaise once and for all but have legislation in place that it cannot be bailed out when it does. Its the only way I think this has any chance of reform.
Personally, one of the silver linings of the Shutdown in California is showing just how much unnecessary bloat their is in Universities (and in Industry) to deliver on its MVP: accredited completion of courses to issue degrees. If this doesn't disrupt academia and make it shift to a having mainly an online-learning direction for most of its programs then it should rightfully walk into its own demise.
I just registered for a bunch of Coresera and Udemy courses on ML, Sustainability and Supply Chain analytics with accreditation from Industry and University alike for what amounts to what cost less than what I paid for 1 or maybe 2 textbooks while I was in University--that I can complete at my own pace on my terms.
If the goal was to foster an environment for those with the drive to acquire useful skills, then I'd say we already have evolved past the archaic University system and are only forced to be burdened by it solely because of convention.
Apprenticeships are pretty much the backbone of the Germanic countries' Economic and Industrial might, and University is pretty much just an affectation or continued learning component; we need to learn that lesson considering just how much of the US 'education system' is based on Prussian Pedagogy and Ideology.