There is always a catch.

We (Russia) have so called "free higher education" but it doesn't mean anyone can get a degree for free. There is a limited number of budget-funded places, and only students with better scores are accepted. For top universities like ITMO, you need to have 100/100 points on 3 subjects + 10 extra points for scientific activity to get "free" education. Otherwise, pay money.

Furthermore, within that government-funded quota almost half of places are reserved for olympiad winners and participants of a military operation, so the number of available places is even lower.

Of course, if you do not want to study computer science in a top university, the bar is much lower and you do not need to have the top scores. But then you will be working some job nobody wants for a low salary.

Furthermore, the government now puts a limit to number of paid places in cities like Moscow and Saint-Petersburg because they do not like that young people move to large cities to get an IT profession instead of studying in the college in their small city to work in the factory for a low salary.

I wonder what is the reality of "free education" in other countries. Can you get an IT, AI-related degree in a top university for free.

> In the US, college is considered a privilege for those who can afford it or are poor enough to be granted it from poorly designed taxpayer funds.

Here in Denmark, part of the organized labor movements was also a focus on the duty of the worker to acquire new skills. That reframing of an education, of something you should be grateful for receiving, towards something you had a duty to continually pursue, is extremely important to how education is seen and practiced.

We've lost a lot of that philosophical backing, but that's one of the cool things of organizations. Even years after we've forgot why we've organized education like this, the gears continue to turn. I do think we're in the middle of a pretty frighting turn away from it, but hopefully we can fix that in time.

>Then we set the bar for hiring to requiring a degree making it so that if you want anything above minimum wage, you’re going to have to get a degree.

While this may have been true in the past, this is no longer the case, and it has not been the case for at least a decade and change now, at least in the US.

If you are intelligent and self-motivated to learn in-demand skills, and you can demonstrate those skills, and adapt well to a corporate environment, there is a path for you even without a degree. Yes, not every door is open to you, but that doesn't mean all the good doors are closed.

I've been on hiring committees where I interviewed Ivy League CS grads for SWE positions who couldn't do leetcode easies, tasks like defanging an IP address, in a language of their choice, with clear instructions, active guidance from me, and permission to search the web for syntax (but not solutions), and an entire hour to solve it.

As a means of delivering credible social proof of competency, legacy admissions and grade inflation have all but ruined college degrees.

We live in era where essentially all recorded human knowledge is available for free, instantaneously, 24/7, from a device that fits in your pocket and works from just about anywhere, and this has been the case for my entire career. As of more recently, $20/mo gets you a personal 1:1 tutor that knows more than every college professor you've ever seen combined, is available to you 24/7, never judges you for stupid questions, never gets tired of re-explaining concepts to you that you're struggling with, will write a study plan / syllabus perfectly tailored to your existing knowledge and schedule, complete with links to reading material, generate interactive quizzes and tests for you, etc.

College as a means of delivering information is about 30 years out of date at this point, and college as a means of delivering a tailored education is now about 4 years out of date.

In the words of Peter Gregory, college has become a cruel joke on the poor and middle class.