I wish there was an even faster way to get that stupid piece of paper. I don't even care about what the degree is, just anything. I am doing ok now without one

I wish there was an even faster way to get that stupid piece of paper. I don't even care about what the degree is, just anything. I am doing ok now without one but i could easily be unemployable in a few years if the job market in the US goes the way of EU and most other countries where a decade+ experience is still 0 value without that degree. I avoided right out of highschool to avoid debt and wasting my time learning stuff that will not help me in my career. Now I can afford it but no time and I still have a ton of stuff to continue to learn. I really wish college becomes free like the rest of public education (at least at public unis). The US gov can easily fund public online universities to compete with WGU that are free. I would be so glad to pay more taxes for that. Internationally, what I have seen is (pure guesstimating based on observation) 60-70% of people with masters know shit/almost-nothing but the rest make US workforce look like they're in grade school. My point is, the talent gap and global competition from asia and eu mostly is very significant. Free college is how you compete with china, not just $800bn (biden just asked for $20bn increase!) military budget.