> 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.