Chile is introducing free higher education
I lived in Chile for several years.  I think this is a bad idea for several reasons.<p>First off, one of the things that makes Chile great is that its education system is independant of the government.  It results in chileans who are markedly better at critical thinking than americans. (While there one of the things I did was work with high school and college students and of course got to know a lot of chileans.)   Their schools are all about education and keeping the people sending their kids there happy-- by educating them.<p>There is a real effect where the person paying the bills calls the shots.  When government is paying the bills, turning out good citizens is the goal.  This is why the football players are the heroes of most schools and the computer nerds are beat up.  This is why schools are enacting absurd zero tolerance policies.  This is why standardized tests and teachers tenure and unions are so bad.<p>There really is something to the market incentive to provide a better experience at lower cost...<p>The socialists are in power in chile right now but I don't think that will last long, and the reality is the Chilean constitution is pretty well protecting capitalism.  Consequently the government runs a surplus does a great job of providing services and mostly stays out of peoples way... and Chile is the south american economic miracle as a result.