Situation in the UK is just as strange.

Attend university in England, Wales or Northern Ireland and one will have to pay tuition fees. However if you live in Scotland and go to a Scottish university your tuition for your first undergrad degree is free...

at state community colleges and 2-year technical schools. Brookings Institute made some observations about it last year:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2019/05/06/five-things-to-know-about-the-tennessee-promise-scholarship/amp/

fed, state and local.

they arent as cheap as they used to be, but they are still an affordable option because of all the tax money behind them.

They just need to be educated anough to follow instructions, and a high school degree does that.

College education is quickly becoming a requirement for military service. In the Army, you'll never make it past Staff Sergeant without at least an Associate's degree, and every First Sergeant I ever knew had at least a bachelor's.

colleges are affordable, etc. But, everyone should be able to attend a decent college. I’m fine with Ivy League schools charging more, but a basic college education should be available and affordable.

That makes it easier to exploit them. So people on the right are opposed to free higher education. The question is, why are so many people on the left also opposed to it?

Industrialization affected the Northeast much more than the South and West, so, on average, US society has lagged behind the rest of the industrialized world, despite our collective scientific, technological, and military prowess.