I’d challenge that assumption. If you look outside of the US context, Germany invested heavily in trade schools, which by no means are considered “higher education”. Seems to be working pretty well for them.
The government KEPT saving money on the number of children in general education, and kept increasing control over school, which has lead to in most places ONLY children who get let through achieve a general education (ie. the number of free places is so low, only the children let through get a place. Effort, actually being good at it, doesn't get you a place anymore. It only gets jealous people to intensely sabotage you)
The government saving money on this has ALSO of course reduced the quality of teachers. Everywhere, but also in general education, so one can ask "even if you do get a place ... what's the use of that? Teachers won't help you beyond what's required of them and won't teach you all the material". In most places you cannot get a general education from your teachers EVEN if you have a place in general education. Leading to ridiculous drop-out rates: starters in 1st year gymi / people who succeed in "abitur" (ie. final exam 6th year) is 10-30%. Somewhere between 2/3 and 90% of kids drop out, or otherwise fail to pass the final exam.
Oh and to make matters worse yet again: the government has ALSO saved money on libraries. Which means that not having access to the material goes quite far. In anything but the largest cities you CANNOT get free access to anything but the most basic math or scientific materials.
I guess one tiny bit of good news is that it's cheaper than ever on amazon and available illegally, but unless you know what material is good and how to download illegally ... good luck.
Even private schools have become cheaper than ever, but "cheaper than ever before" should not be confused with "affordable". We're still talking 30% of yearly pre-tax wage per child (and, I just checked, 80% of pre-tax AVERAGE German wage per child). Most people, even with really good jobs, cannot afford them and so almost no kids have access to people who actually know science. This has lead to the resumption of the situation my grandfather complained about: in "a good family" ONE kid gets educated. Obviously, usually the oldest. The rest ... tough.
So now you have the worst of all possible outcomes:
1) WAY too few children have a general education
2) the ones that do pass a general education, do not know the material
3) this is still getting worse every year
Yes, there's exceptions. People who achieve a general education almost exclusively under their own power. However, as you can imagine, this is a small minority.
It is already at the point that Germany is completely dependent on immigration of highly educated people. "highly educated" does not mean university degree, it means "passed high school education". You know, people actually capable of doing general minimally scientific work (think accounting, lab work, nursing (where it's nursing including administering medicine or managing a diagnostic machine, not just changing beds), "production work", anything dealing with computers, ...)
Oh and absolutely NOBODY is happy with this situation. Not parents. Not children. Not employers. Not the government. Not universities. Not trade schools. Most people are very angry how they were treated, personally, and they do understand that this will cause more and more problems as time goes on. But you're not allowed to suggest improving this situation, you see that would be VERY unfair to the people who already got fucked by the system, ie. to them. I kind of agree that it would be unfair to them, but of course it means nothing will ever get better.
Anecdotal of course but from my own experience and from the few teachers I know now, there are so many issues with students assaulting teachers, assaulting each other, kids who can barely read, write or do math, etc.
I strongly preferred my liberal arts classes at my university but most people in them were just checking the box because they viewed the expensive ($20k+/yr in state) school as a job training program even though it isn’t that.