> burying the actually high cost someplace where it's spread out and hard to see, so it looks like low cost "spread out" implies taxation, but something simila

> burying the actually high cost someplace where it's spread out and hard to see, so it looks like low cost "spread out" implies taxation, but something similar can be done via endowment. For example, a college with an existing $100MM endowment can educate at least a few hundred students for free in perpetuity. With a billion dollar endowment, a college can educate a couple thousand for free. In fact, Berea College does exactly this: 1600 students, 1.2 billion endowment, and provides effectively free college to nearly every student. Ranks alongside places like Denison University. So, Low Cost (to consumer), High Quality, but definitely not Universal (there are only so many billion dollar endowments to go around).