I just want to throw two more arguments in here:
Regarding the article #30 linked: Of course higher education isn't free. Nothing is free. But this:
In a typical economic model for financing higher education, the consumer (student) would pay for the good that it consumes (education)
just doesn't feel right.
I know it's a bit different in the US but I'll try to explain why things are the way they are over here.
During an apprenticeship to become a skilled worker (had to paraphrase it, didn't find a single word for it), you don't pay for your "education", you get payed. Why? At first other workers will have to put time into teaching you, therefore losing the company money. Of course it'll get better, you'll soon make the company more money than it loses because of the worker teaching you not being able to work during that time, but still getting paid. But just hiring would still be cheaper. Why do companies bother with training someone young and unskilled, maybe even straight out of school with no previous experience?
Because they have to. If those who need those workers don't train them, no one will. And you can't just hire someone if there is no one left who can do that job, no matter what you are willing to pay (welcome to supply and demand). The profit you can't make if you don't have workers outweighs the profit you lose by training those workers.
The point is, the worth of the work you did and what you got paid are pretty much equal. So essentially you got trained for free (the company paid for it). Why should higher education be any different?
Now the obvious difference to higher education is:
Companies are neither directly involved in the process of higher education nor do they know who of those studying right now is actually going to for them in the future.
The idea is that since those with higher education in the end will benefit companies in a way that will generate them monetary profit. Other companies will in turn benefit from those companies investing their now higher profit in goods and services that should enable them to further increase their profit. In the end the whole economy will benefit solely because a number of individuals received higher education. However if those individuals do not have the means to acquire higher education it must be the goal of every entity in that economy, persons and companies alike, to help them in order to maximize their own profit. So it is perfectly legitimate that everyone pays for the education of more or less "a select few". In one of the implentations of this system the state sees to that everyone pays their part in form of taxes and the universities see to that those who are best suited (aka those who don't fail the tests) receive that higher education that will later benefit the economy.
In Germany the selection of those best suited is softened up quite a bit because we care not only about the economy but about people aswell. It's fairly easy to change that by cutting budgets (politicians love to cut budgets) so the universities are forced to either lower their quality standards or to accept less students (done by grades so less students -> better average).
Another thing:
Socializing costs can in fact reduce them. You don't pay only your student loans, you pay interest aswell. Assuming the interest rate is greater than the inflation that means you actually pay more than what you need. There is no interest rate on taxes. If the state pays for your education you'll later only have to pay back what you actually needed through taxes. Even if the state is in debt (which is a bad thing and a whole different issue) it'll still get a lower interest rate than your student loans. The cost is probably still spread across the populace to a higher degree, depending on which implementations you compare (student loan payments tax deductable etc.).
Same for retirement pensions, if you have to save up for yourself you have to work against inflation and won't benefit from increasing actual wages in the future. Depending on the ratio of working to non-working population a state-run solution can reduce the costs for the individual significantly.
But not everyone can win, right? So who loses? Simple: The banks. If your states goal is to maximize the banks' profit (wether or not the crippling debt for everyone who persues higher education is a bonus) then sure, go ahead.
But if your state cares more about banks than about you, I'd consider moving.