There were lots of places in the United States that offered free education until the ’70s. It was once nationally mandated to think of higher education as a public good—that it was simply good for democracy. Now, education is a piece of private advantage you purchase in the big competition for jobs. Look at President Truman’s 1947 report on higher education—it was quite clear that everyone thought it was in the national advantage to make higher education as accessible and as cheap as possible. What the hell happened to that?