I mean, the money has to come from somewhere. Yes, in terms of government-provided services "free" tends to mean "socialized", but if I compare it to a market-d

I mean, the money has to come from somewhere. Yes, in terms of government-provided services "free" tends to mean "socialized", but if I compare it to a market-driven healthcare system in the US where the majority of effort goes into creative billing to milk people's insurances, the overall lifetime cost of healthcare appears to be much lower. Especially that with German insurance, there's no copay for treatments, only for prescription drugs (and even then, it's between 5-10€ per item, which can be further refunded if you are eligible). With universities, my argument for public funding is that it theoretically makes higher education accessible to people actually interested in the subjects, instead of people who can afford it and go for the prestige of it. I feel that elsewhere, big name universities serve more as a platform for networking rather than actual educational institutions; here, I do not even know which universities are more or less prestigious. A degree is a degree.