Free college makes sense, though, as an investment in upgrading our country's abilities.
I mean, there has been a lot of discussion about a bunch of ppl that used to have jobs that don't now due to automation and moving them out of country. One way to get ppl like that back into good paying jobs would be free secondary ed. Then you have more ppl with the ability to earn more than $12/hr providing better lives for those ppl, more places where employers can take advantage of a higher educated source of labor, higher tax rev for the govt(local and fed), less drain on entitlements, etc.
Public ed was organized in our country to help ppl be better employees. It seems like a logical next step would be public college ed given that the new factory job is not putting crap together, but rather keeping the robot that puts crap together running well.
Sure, that isn't as fist-pump-eff-yeah friendly, but it is logical.