&gt; though it is a bit like solving the equal access to education problem by banning all private colleges -- more than a little absurd.<p>While one can definitely argue against this view, it&#x27;s far from absurd: the basic argument is that the availability of private college&#x2F;lawyers&#x2F;your-favourite-resource favours the rich and powerful, and that you can only get actual equal access for all to education&#x2F;trial-defense&#x2F;something-else if you force the rich and powerful to have an equal playing field with everyone else (at which point they will then use their power to ensure a decent&#x2F;good level of the service for everyone, including themselves).<p>Two fairly different, and likely overly generalised and simplified, examples of this view:
- the British left-wing view of private (known as &quot;public&quot; in Britain, to confuse us all) schools (vs state schools): they allow the rich&amp;powerful to get away with underfunding&#x2F;neglecting the state school system, as it doesn&#x27;t actually affect them, their family or their friends&#x27; family
- the Swiss view of public schools - paraphrasable as &quot;Swiss private schools are for foreigners&quot; - which more or less implies that using (or a society needing) a private school is a moral failing ;) (ie the rich&amp;powerful will help fix the public schools rather than send their children to the private one)