https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_education > Thomas Jefferson proposed "establishing free schools to teach readi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_education > Thomas Jefferson proposed "establishing free schools to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic, and from these schools those of intellectual ability, regardless of background or economic status, would receive a college education paid for by the state." > In the United States, the first free public institution of higher education, the Free Academy of the City of New York (today the City College of New York), was founded in 1847 with the aim of providing free education to the urban poor, immigrants and their children. Its graduates went on to receive 10 Nobel Prizes, more than at any other public university. https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/about/history https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/about/history > City's academic excellence and status as a working-class school earned it the titles "Harvard of the Proletariat," "the poor man's Harvard," and "Harvard-on-the-Hudson." Ten CCNY graduates went on to win Nobel Prizes.