>>So closing the gap to make universities free to the public would involve (in most cases) more than doubling the current level of state/federal funding. Or, a

>>So closing the gap to make universities free to the public would involve (in most cases) more than doubling the current level of state/federal funding. Or, a mix of increasing the level of state/federal funding and closing down a portion of the roughly 1900 public colleges[1] around the country. Unfortunatley, as soon as this approach is used, then the "access" problem rears its head since public colleges that are shutdown require more students to commute/reside further away from their home towns. [1] https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=1122 https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=1122