People can go to a school that is a community college and pay reasonably.
College is more expensive than you might think. Most young people end up stuck with lots of debt these days for having the audacity to seek a higher education. We can do better than this.
If one wants to go to a good school, why do you think it should be free?
It would put young people ahead, which is a vital necessity for the decades to come if America is to maintain world dominance. Most millennials are fucked right now. They can't afford to buy houses. They have little to nothing in savings. They're just getting by. If we don't figure out a way to empower young people the future looks very bleak. As much as it might hurt your pride it is simply the truth that from an economic standpoint young people today have it harder than older people did. If you were growing up in the world today you'd struggle a lot more than you did.
Public High Schools suck.
Do you think we'd be better off without them? Imperfect as they are they are extremely important. Public university will be imperfect too, but nevertheless it'll be a huge boon to our society, and decades after we do it we won't be able to imagine going back. You'd have to be a lunatic to think we shouldn't have public k-12. That would be a catastrophe.