It's only free if you forget opportunity cost. Lots of people working behind cash registers with 4 year degrees would have been much happier going to trade sch

It's only free if you forget opportunity cost. Lots of people working behind cash registers with 4 year degrees would have been much happier going to trade schools and being well on their way to being small business owners/co-owners. There's no doubt that not having crippling debt is much better than having crippling debt. However, we have this cultural idea that being on the road to taking partial owneship of a small skilled labor business is inferior to being in a dead-end job with a 4-year degree. I fear that an over-emphasis on opening access to 4-year degrees implicitly reinforces this idea of 4-year degrees being universally better and that tradespeople have somehow settled for second-best, even if they have more income, a better work-life balance, and are providing absolutely essential services.