When my two professional daughters attended the University of California, tuition was only $3,000 a year.  Since these were land grant colleges, this low tuition is the way it had always been.  In fact it was nearly free until the time of Ronald Reagan.  Now in California there is a new law that will allow students to go to public Community Colleges free for the first 2 years.  The Republicans in California fought his for many years.  When my daughters attended college there was a parallel Catholic Education, charging tuition but flourishing.  There were many "low paid" nun and priest professors.  Perhaps a better choice for Catholic Education would be to get more money from the diocese, but then there is the problem of Episcopal interference with the  curriculum, but many schools already have that in the form of Bishops licensing theologians.  I think for Catholic Educators to fear more  free education will prove  self-defeating.  We must not allow the elite to dumb down people.