Honestly, it feels like the kind of thing that companies which actually want merit-based graduates should want to subsidize more aggressively.

If you're a billion-dollar company that only hires college grads, it feels like there's gotta be value to you in making sure there's more meritocracy in the process of getting degrees.

It would also change who the customer is so that the university doesn't "owe" the student a degree which makes the evaluation that universities do a little less rigorous.